Vae soli 2018

Editor: I'm intrigued by Iurie Matei's 2018 mixed-media painting, "Vae soli." It's unsettling, but hauntingly beautiful at the same time. The arrow piercing the figure and the weeping eye… what's your take on it? Curator: Well, immediately, the "woe to the solitary" vibe hits hard, doesn't it? Matei layers a lot here. The figure, yes, wounded, but look at how she holds herself. There's strength in her vulnerability, like a defiant acceptance. Editor: The bird sitting on the arrow seems like an odd detail to me. Curator: Ah, the bird! Is it singing despite the pain, or lamenting? Maybe both. Birds often represent freedom, but here it's perched on the very instrument of suffering. And then that isolated eye, weeping. Think of it – a detached observer, maybe the artist themselves, or even us, the viewers. What do we see? What do we feel? Matei isn't spoon-feeding answers here. The title, from the Book of Ecclesiastes, adds another layer—it's about the perils of isolation, right? But the painting itself is a conversation, a very visually arresting one. The Neo-expressionist style definitely evokes raw emotion, a kind of visceral response, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: Definitely. The rawness is hard to ignore. I almost want to look away, but I can't. So it's not just about being alone, but the pain that comes *with* it? Curator: Perhaps, or maybe the strength one finds in navigating it. That's the delicious tension in the painting. It throws you in the deep end of human emotion. Editor: It definitely gives me a lot to think about in terms of visual storytelling. Curator: For me, the painting embodies how we choose to create meaning when surrounded by isolation and what we’re willing to carry through this solitude. Thank you, I learned so much today!