The Brooklyn Bridge has been painted, photographed, and illustrated in every medium imaginable. But this is probably the first time it has ever been executed as a 24 foot sculpted bas-relief in someone’s home. This bridge is easily synonymous with power, and this artwork captures that essence. The sheer scale of the work creates energy while complimenting the decor. It enriches the natural visual flow of the modern setting throughout this lovely home, resulting in an artistic and harmonious balance between expression and design.
When ID Digest first spoke to Octavian Florescu, it was immediately apparent that it was his passion that drove this symbolic balance. His favorite artist? Creation itself. His definition of an artist? “To be an artist is not “work” per say, it’s everything. It is a lifestyle; a hobby, a vocation, and a way of existing”. Whether Octavian is carving plaster or painting other-world creatures that seem to be moving with the grace of firelight, his surrealist style of expression is inherent, irregardless the medium or what type of surface will be the ultimate canvas. His portable skills, his highly unusual training embraced his need for continual growth and self-reflection in his art. But it was the changing face of his country and living history that provided the opportunity. Not only once -but twice.
Octavian’s biography reads more like a travel package where you start out in steerage and suddenly find yourself in first class dancing with the cruise ship captain - heading into uncharted waters with wild enthusiasm!
Born in Craiova, Romania, Octavian started his artistic career as an apprentice church painter. His personal mentor, Victor Negoi, an accomplished and licensed church painter under the patronage of the Romanian Orthodox Church, taught Octavian his first form of art expression, the “Byzantine” style. This style would leave a very powerful mark on Octavian, which is still evident in his work today. Five years later with his apprenticeship completed he obtains the “Licensed Church Painter” title. A very difficult official “License” to achieve and one offered by only a few Orthodox Church programs in 3 or 4 countries. But his path will not follow in the footsteps of his mentor, for the unimaginable is about to come knocking on Octavian’s door.
To an astounded Octavian the Romanian authorities offer him a License as an “Independent Artist” with the condition that he gives up religious painting. Orthodox Church paintings have to be (at the same time) decorative, meaningful, and respectful of certain canons. Suddenly he would not be a part of an institutional system that requires strict methodology and interpretation, Octavian could now dream. These surreal circumstances and his vision quickly took him from Romania to Hungary. In Hungary Octavian flourished and then once again, for the second time, history in the making entwines itself in and around this young man from Romania.
Romania was going to hold their first cultural activity in half a century at the Romanian Embassy in Hungary! Diplomats were to be invited including Canada and The United States. (They attended) The event was to pivot around only one artist, Octavian.
How often is a writer presented with the golden opportunity to insert into an article a well-worn expression where the true sense of its meaning is so “on the mark”? Not often, but in this case it fit this featured artist perfectly!
The rest is history.
In 1991 Octavian left Hungary with his wife and two children for North America. For the last six years they have resided in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His travels have been extraordinary and we now understand what he really meant when he said to us, “My home means the place where I setup my studio”. Exactly.
Contact Information
Phone 403.278.0528
Web Site http://www.florescugallery.com
ID DIGEST - International Gallery of Interior Design
Gallery Shows and Exhibitions
Current
EE FINEAR Gallery, Cambridge, UK
Calgary Webster Gallery, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
About Canada Gallery, Banff, Alberta, Canada
2009
June 2009 World Art Foundation California, USA
June 2009 Calgary EPCO Centre, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Oct 2009 Current Art, Jaffa, Isreal
2010
April 2010 International Exhibit, Bissaya Barreto Foundation,
Covent, San Francisco, USA, European Union, and Coimbra, Portugal
June 2010 W.A.F.,Turkey
ID Digest welcomes the opportunity to introduce Octavian Florescu to our readership. He is an accomplished artist who specializes in 3D bas-relief sculptured work, a very complex visual art often including trompe l’oeil techniques in the final decoration and more than 40-50 different tools just to work the plaster.
We invite our readers to view his slide presentation; we have a few photographs that show the before and the after of this type of work and some samples of his various styles. Some photographs are of his latest pieces and some are from previous years. The “Brooklyn Bridge”, the one that brought him to our attention, is one of his earlier pieces. We have mentioned its power and its presence. Now you can envision its twenty-four foot length!
Octavian Florescu. The sum of his parts can be best described by quoting the artist himself.
“The unknown, the energy and the struggle to discover the essence of life, the movement and the metamorphosis are the basic elements of my work. All of my work is a real introspection of life”
