Mariana
Sain-Morar
"In the battle against the lie Art has
always been victorious"
(Alexander Solzhenitsyn)
The
role of art in a totalitarian country, as Romania was in my youth, is different
than it is in the free world. Under a totalitarian regime the
art is either forced to surpass its esthetical function, to engage in the
fight against the Lie, exposing it, or to be a simple tool used by those
regimes to distort the reality. In those circumstances the truth
could not be openly spoken, therefore it took unusual forms, which were hard to
grasp at first glance.
The
majority of my work done in Romania does not easily reveal itself to the
hurried viewer. These paintings have hidden connotations, although always
a message based on general human values, which could not be freely expressed in
a totalitarian regime. Scenes of everyday life acquire expressionist and
dramatic nuances, the chromatic palette usually being based on deep, grave tones, seldom touched by light tones, used not to solve the
mystery but to accentuate it. Still there is hope; there is the power to trust
in a better and just world.
The artist is a pilgrim on the road toward the divine. He
is on a dynamic waiting pathway and each piece comes as a step forward in
understanding reality and communicating it to the world. The steps are not
symmetrical. They might have different forms and heights, the artist trying to
avoid walking monotonously and repeating himself. In this process of becoming,
the artist perhaps should follow Gabriel Marcel’s words: "For the Subject
to speak, one must allow Him to converse".
I
want my art to be a witness and a challenge for the viewer who wants to know
and understand a different culture, a dark, sad period in the history of a
nation; a period that should not be repeated anywhere, ever.