No. 36 / Octomber 2020
Mihai Plămădeală, art critic – article published in Tribuna magazine no.416 / January 1-15, 2020
Liviu Epuraş’s artworks can be classified in numerous styles and currents, most of them derived with the prefix “post”, but regardless of the materials, techniques or diversity, sometimes leading to divergence of the proposed images, they have as common denominator the fact that whether or not they seduce the viewer, they cannot go unnoticed. In his creation, the monumental and the miniature coexist peacefully and even harmoniously. Moreover, one can see the same hand, but also vision in all his objects, sculptures, installations, drawings, paintings or collages.
I do not intend to write much about the protagonist’s hand and eyes, because here everything is clear: we are dealing with hypostases of excellence in art. In fact, I foresee a successful teaching career for Liviu Epuraş, of course if he will follow this professional route, at the time of writing these lines the young artist being an assistant at the National University of Arts Bucharest. The best part is that we are dealing with a solid conceptual basis, a vital factor in the field of visual arts, whose reasons are mental (possibly spiritual) rather than morphological.
I further discuss an exhibition project of the artist, entitled “Searching Daphne”. Daphne is both a minor figure in Greek and Roman mythology (a naiad associated with fountains, springs, rivers, but also with chastity) and a fortress in Roman Dacia, Constantiana Daphne, recorded in the fourth century, but whose location remained uncertain. Liviu Epuraş starts, metaphorically speaking, in search of the fortress that can be anywhere and in which anything can be found, until proven otherwise. It is a search with archaeological connotations, made by artistic means, respectively a pseudo-repertory operation. For him, archeology is the ideal pretext for reinventing or (re) constructing parallel stories, legends and mythologies. The chosen subject is not a new one in the visual arts. Fantasy architecture has appeared in Italian painting since the time of Mantegna, when fragments of statues, columns or other morphological elements are called to point out human fragility in the face of the immutable force of nature.
Like other artists, Liviu Epuraş operates with an invented version of Antiquity, resulting from a mixture of fictions and very exact archaeological reconstructions of buildings, documents or sculptural fragments. Thus, the artist presents a composite mix based on an alternative future, an invented past, and a slightly disguised present, combining ready-made objects with personal creations, often inspired by history or art history.
Through this project, the artist wants to explore the connection between archeology and imagination. He believes that archeology depends on both imagination and the science of reconfiguring lost worlds. One of the iconographic sources underlying his project is Wilhelm Jensen’s book, published in 1903, “Gradiva: A Pompeian Fantasy.” The novel features a German archaeologist who dreams of a young woman seen on an ancient Roman relief, whom she calls Gradiva, or “The Woman Who Walks,” and whom she seeks among the ruins of Pompeii. Instead, he discovers there his neighbor Zoe Bertang (“Bertang” roughly translates to “The Woman Who Also Walks”), a love from his childhood. Later, the French surrealists would consider Gradiva as an inspirational model. Sigmund Freud also used this book as a cultural model to describe how art mimics dreams and to mark the idea that archeology mimics the “digging” of psychoanalysts. Freud also drew attention to the dangers of confusing dreams and disappointments with reality.
The “Searching Daphne” project is a personal expedition of Liviu Epuraş that emphasizes the tendencies of connecting art with previous experiences, through which the past is brought back to life. Images and cultural material exert a fascination on us because their presence can be seen as the afterlife of the past.
Finally, I note that a number of significant Romanian artists, without any connection of any kind, with each other, have resorted in the last two decades to archeology, the past (viewed as alternative or parallel history) or fantasy architecture (in ruin). I am thinking of Alexandru Rădvan, with his projects “Memoirs of Constantine” or “Epic”, of Vlad Basarab, with his extensive project “Archeology of Memory”, or of Cosmin Paulescu, with his major project, “Supra Super Subditus”. To this short and select list can be added the name of Liviu Epuraş, an artist who has something to say not only by the way he works, but also by the themes he chooses.