To me, art is a way of life, not a career.
I was born In Transylvania, in the middle of the 20th century. Like any child, I started to sing, paint and play instruments from an early age. My teachers and family advised me to study the arts, first at musical school, then in high school, at fine arts. For the rest of my life, music and fine arts intertwined in my creativity.
I got a solid academic formation at an Art Institute in Bucharest - at that time a six years full time classical program, including drawing, painting, sculpture, design and art theory classes. A pure happiness...
Years later, I also studied art theory and got a M.A. in art history. My thesis focuses on the influence of peasant glass painting on Kandinsky's painting. In parallel, I proved that Nicula peasant glass paintings where a precursor of abstract art.
It all starts at school, if you're driven by passion. A good school doesn't teach the artist what to do, but what not to do. The authentic artists create out of "inner necessity" (Kandinsky). The rest — career, fame — depend on intermediaries who collects all the benefits and leave only crumbs for the artists. The art world is a private club and a big money game and it's important who belongs to this club and who doesn't. What matters is which famous people you are dinning with, more than knowing how to draw or to paint. The most uncompromising work and the strongest ideas are the first to be ignored. It's less about the art than the special ballet around it. Art reputation depends to the same galleries, the same curators, the same collectors. It's hard and futile to get in but it can be bypassed and ignored in order to give art a new deserved direction.
I left the communist Romania to finally settle in Canada. My first solo show – paintings and ceramic sculptures - was mentioned in a prestigious magazine by a journalist I never met and who missed the most challenging part of my work. This was my first warning of the intruders the art world is full of, and of the responsibility of the artists to defend their art.
I wanted my art even more liberated, detached from the physical object and exhibition walls, by leaving my sculptures to disintegrate in nature and switching to the digital image.
The digital technology is a tool that have significantly expanded my possibilities to create and manipulate the visual elements, while preserving originality to the last detail (even when AI is involved). The most challenging effort is the permanent learning to better use it independently, because you can't ask a technician to follow your inspiration. This change allowed me as well to bring together the image and the sound. I don't compose music but I bring in the musician's creations to inspire and structure my visual projects.
"Ghost artists” as myself are minimalist communicators, manifested publicly only by their creative concepts.
I focus on self-reference by talking only about art, which is utterly independent of all social values, financial purposes and utilitarian functions.
Internet exposure became an exclusive media where my projects are shared with the world, without any compromise or any kind of mediator. This permanent show (on YouTube, LinkedIn or Instagram) can be of great impact because I believe that a work of art no longer belongs to anyone after it has been exhibited. Continuing to grow and be transformed by the public's perception, it can legitimately become a new creation. Copyright, name, financial and career ambitions are things of the past, so I show my art without taking all this into account.
There is a price to pay for this marvellous freedom: my art has no references and landmarks, but it exists.