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.