A cubist composition derived from the observation of a broken mirror — the multiple reflections produced by fractured glass are, in themselves, a natural form of cubist multiplication. Each shard shows a different angle of the room in which the mirror hung; the painting assembles these fragments into a coherent pictorial structure.
Acrylic was chosen for its precise edge-making capacity. The boundary between each mirrored shard had to be legible without being mechanical, and the fast drying time allowed each section to be completed cleanly before the adjacent one was begun.
About the artist
Catalin Vasile works across a wide range of media and scales without feeling that this breadth dilutes any particular practice — he considers the gouache studies on paper and the large oil canvases as part of the same ongoing investigation of light and surface, conducted in different registers. The studies are fast, the canvases slow; both teach him different things about the same problem.
He is based in Galați and has a particular relationship with the light and landscape of the Danube estuary — a quality of luminosity specific to that part of Romania that recurs throughout his work regardless of the subject. He accepts commissions for landscape and interior work.
