2 Mai Beach 

Curator: Ion Pacea's oil painting, “2 Mai Beach," captures an Impressionistic vision. It invites us to explore the connections between place and perception. What strikes you immediately about it? Editor: Well, the materiality is so upfront. The thick, visible brushstrokes – particularly those vibrant yellows and blues. It really announces its making, it's not trying to hide anything. The flatness feels almost defiant. Curator: Exactly! I see this simplicity as a challenge to romantic notions of landscape. We need to contextualize it with Pacea’s engagement with plein-air practices of his time. Do you find this echoes similar trends in abstract-expressionism? Editor: Absolutely. It's pushing at the boundary between representation and abstraction. The "beach" is almost secondary to the exploration of the paint itself. How does that engagement affect, say, Romanian socialist realism that it probably emerged alongside? Curator: Thinking about this landscape through such political history helps expose contradictions. The bright and very visible colors serve, for me, to reject dominant narratives. How do we frame it with an artistic turn from this political mode and with Pacea's legacy of avant-garde movements in his time? Editor: Perhaps through examining how accessible material production methods create space for innovation or opposition. It appears this "painting from life" allows for a creative independence. Curator: Yes, by presenting such common locations in painting, this artwork engages in social and historical dialogues of production. As if, perhaps, he suggests alternatives by questioning our perception. Editor: Considering the conditions of the work's manufacture definitely makes this painting more than "just" a landscape to me. I notice details, like brush handling, much differently now. Curator: The engagement in abstraction allows Pacea to subtly redefine the very concept of socialist painting in post-war Romania. A small turn, maybe. But with impact. Editor: I will walk away thinking of “2 Mai Beach" as both a scene, and, more importantly, a constructed materiality with historical valence.