Illustration for Nichita Stanescu's Epica Magna 1978

Sorin Dumitrescu made this illustration for Nichita Stanescu's Epica Magna with pencil on what looks like plain paper. I'm getting a sense of Dumitrescu circling around a thought. He's using all these marks to try and capture it—a bold finger pointing, a grid, numbers, a kind of hovering pyramid, a ring... The whole thing feels kind of like controlled chaos, which, as a painter, I can definitely relate to. I imagine Dumitrescu was feeling the same kind of pressure that I sometimes feel. I mean, the whiteness of the page, the terror of starting! Then you make a mark, another mark, and then they start talking to each other, and you find yourself in a kind of dialogue. You have to feel the tension in your hand, look, respond, adjust. The web of scribbles holds the image together while also letting it breathe. It kind of reminds me of Cy Twombly, that freedom to just let the hand move and see where it goes. It makes me want to get back to the studio, actually!