Daniel Cristian Chiriac, born in 1972 in Romania, paints oil on canvas. His desired styles are realism and surrealism. After a protracted period of abstractionism (earlier than 2006), Chiriac rediscovered the lovely artwork of the vintage masters. Being increasingly more interested in the old master’s techniques, he slowly abandoned the summary artwork fashion and grew into surrealism, exceptional realism, and classical realism style. Most of his time is devoted to his little daughters and spouse, direction, and artwork creation. Here, these days, he brings us his story with insight and personal anecdotes regarding his life experience as an artist.
As for the second painting, I thought about this problem multiple years before starting it. I noticed this title on the street. It changed into a theater play. The play is quite difficult to understand, and I didn’t see it, so my composition has nothing in common except the name. All the foundation got here from that name around which I evolved the tale starting from this question:
What if Don Juan had stopped flying from one flower to another? According to the legend of Don Juan, he failed to forestall seducing ladies, and his quit became hell… However, being a romantic kind, I notion that, in certain situations, Don Juan should have been seduced to discover “the simplest one” that became clear to him.
This is the difficulty of my “The Final Love of Don Juan”… Nicely; I assume that the name should be “The Best Love of Don Juan” due to the fact I think all his “hobbies” turned into handiest a performance, not love due to the fact I do agree with in actual love made out of devotion, appreciate and sacrifice (alas, so depreciated in nowadays of exacerbated egoism)… Therefore, that is my version of the legend of Don Juan’s ending: I think that Don Juan may want to have observed his authentic love with divine assistance most effectively.
The foreground sculptural element, along with the chalice, the hand, and the pomegranate, represents the lifestyles of Don Juan as we knew it: full of lust and carnal pride, in a continuous hunt to feed the private satisfaction, all of these, beneath a demonic impact.
With divine help, represented using the dodecahedron that, is an image of the heaven substance (according to Aristotle), Don Juan observed a woman who embodied all the meanings of a virgin (observe the Virgo constellation on the dodecahedron). Only an excellent Virgo should “capture” the soul of Don Juan, I assume.
After that, Don Juan realized that his previous life had become only a mask and cast it off, after which he flew for his love on a silver string to the Moon. The Moon is in the primary quarter, and the new pet is growing.
W, I can’t give a selected name when it is about influence. I very much like Caravaggio, and he inspired me. Then, there are various Old Dutch painters. But, the principle effect in my realist artwork comes from modern-day realist artists who I suppose are better in depictions, yet maybe no longer as proper at crafting a portrayal. I mean by using that in regards to using techniques that ensure superb and lengthy maintenance of paintings.
How long have you ever taken into consideration yourself as an artist?
Maybe because I was sixteen or 17… I’m not positive; however, I’m certain I changed into wondering that I have inventive competencies. This also turned into a time when, even though I wasn’t drawing a single line, I considered I made art honestly by walking on a street or speaking to pals. My mind becomes manner way too open to what artwork making is. Anyway, I have become assured that I’m an artist after making a residing through artwork.
Tell me about your first revel in painting with oil:
Oh, this is thus far inside the past! I was a child… Was I 7 or eight? I am not sure exactly what turned into my age, but the circle of relatives and friends, who were also the only ones who initiated me in art, made me a present field of oil coloration tubes. He gave it to me and not anything greater. No commands, no steerage… Not anything! As you would give chocolate to a kid, it’s obvious that kids realize what to do with it. Also, he failed to provide me with a canvas, so I painted my first oil painting on paper—that kind of paper you may discover for kid’s watercolors. I had no thinner either, so of direction, my brushes have been ruined.
I keep in mind that the greatest surprise is to see how long oils take to dry! And additionally, how many things get dirty… Nevertheless, I remember the concern turned into a still life of a handmade vase with some roses implemented on it like an excessive-alleviation sculpture. In the vase have been roses, too. It changed into my “early masterpiece,” an issue for my mom to praise to her pals long afterward. Well, quite exceptionally for me, I liked that portrayal, too. It’s a rule for me to no longer like my artwork for various weeks… Nicely, with 2 – 3 exceptions.
What matters to encourage you to create art?
Things that I suppose are lovely. And that can be the whole lot. It relies upon using the artist’s eye. After all, isn’t it always the artist’s task to identify beauty in which the normal eyes see nothing but regular things and to bring them face-to-face with that beauty through artwork?
I consider a humorous situation approximately an issue that stimulated me. Well, it’s really that it changed after I became an abstractionist, so I’ve been given excuses. So, being in the toilet and not having anything, I saw some cracks in the partitions with ceramic tiles and discovered that the design was thrilling. I appeared over them, canalized them, and realized there was a pleasant problem for a painting. Looking over my summary gallery, you may see a polyptych portrait (four pieces), predominant inexperienced colors, and a few reds and blues. That’s the resulting artwork inspired by the crackled bathroom ceramic tiles.
What are you looking to carry via your artwork? What does it mean to you?
Well, I accept that an artist is to carry as much as the worldview beauty, actually splendor, as the main rule. The relaxation needs to be an extraordinary exception. What does not fall below this rule isn’t always art. As I assume that an artist’s eye has to be taught to look beautiful, I don’t attempt to carry anything but splendor, which indicates my entire philosophy. No different philosophy, not any alembicated discourse like “noticed in mild of art, anchored inside the synergy of information, the recourse to reality, do no longer elude the meanders of the concrete area.”
I’m strolling at the vegetable marketplace and spot a delectable sweet pepper for soup; I see pleasing still lifestyles portray. Also, like the solution to the previous query, one might most effectively see some cracks in the tiles; I may see a show. So, my project is to reveal the beauty therein, which no different eye sees but the artist’s eye does.
The funny thing is that, so regularly, I do not use that pile of thoughts to start a new portrait, but the latest concept struck me. This way, an artist should be a monk if he wants nearly all his thoughts transposed onto the canvas (or another help… In any other case, I learned how to paint faster, now not so gradually as me. As I stated earlier, thoughts come everywhere in the region, from the restroom or vegetable market to the real reality of dream truth.
When it’s miles approximately realist artwork, I set down the model, do the composition, and then start to portray. Quite simple. I don’t make multiple compositions to pick from as I’m confident in my first impulse. The painting technique itself is a love/hate pastime for me. Until 2006, all of my existence, while a child, despite tips from that early mentor who gave me the first oils and who truly hated abstract art, I cherished abstractionism, and I created for this reason. Well, there was no such pleasure to color so! On the correct days (OK, nights), I painted 2, 3, or even four artworks! The primary hassle was that that pleasure turned into quick-lasting… Like a power drink… I like the best painting of that length – Solar Incandescence.
Since surrealism and realism, I almost hate the painting technique because it is so slow – 2 days for a small ACEO miniature (2. Five x 3. Five inches) to now and again months for large paintings like “Till the quit of time.” The reward of this pain comes substantially while they portray ready. Yes, it is genuine; the pleasure of photographs I have carried out disappears ultimately. Still, it lasts much longer, giving me a lot greater pride and offering me a complete feeling and confidence that I’m an artist. I did not see much distinction between a carpet dressmaker and me when I became an abstractionist (forgive me, carpet designers).
When it’s far from approximate surrealism, an idea will become a caricature, a comic strip, or an initial composition drawing. Then, I search for models of objects in my surreal composition. If humans are our bodies, it is time for an image-taking picture: me, my wife, and my children. If gadgets of any kind, an image taking pictures too. Of course, there’s a continual want for hand drawings as well.
Then, to hurry up the method, I use my PC to mock-up from pix and hand drawings into a photograph as close as possible to the final portrayed picture. I may additionally or not (most usually, now not) do some color research. With that photograph on the display screen, I start drawing on paper the same size as the canvas. I make adjustments if I feel it’s miles wanted. I switch it onto the canvas… And… Once more, the sluggish process of painting starts offevolved.