Cantacuzinean Insignia 2007

Marin Gherasim created Cantacuzinean Insignia, and it feels like a world of trial, error, and intuition went into its making. I can imagine Gherasim scratching away at the surface to reveal the image underneath. The red lines are roughly hewn and raw, revealing an image of heraldry or something more personal, like an icon of the artist's own invention. It's like the painting is shedding its skin, or about to take flight. The paint is applied so thinly in some areas that you can see the layers beneath; in other areas, it's thick and chunky, giving it a sculptural quality. The physicality of the medium shapes our experience of the painting and contributes to its emotional impact. These artists are in conversation across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting becomes an embodied expression that embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meanings over fixed or definitive readings.