Memory of the Snail 

Editor: So here we have, painted with acrylics, “Memory of the Snail” by Nicolae Maniu. It gives me this really odd sense of stillness, almost meditative, but also kind of…dreamlike? Like I’m staring at something from a half-remembered fable. What do you see in this piece? Curator: A world within a world, perhaps. Don't you think? I find myself pondering the way Maniu uses this humble snail shell—a symbol of home, of slow, deliberate movement—and presents it against what seems like a distant landscape, maybe even a suggestion of the cosmos. It's both intensely intimate and staggeringly vast. Editor: Vast…I see what you mean. It feels like the snail's memory contains an entire universe. Curator: Exactly! The reflection, almost a perfect mirroring, further emphasizes this idea of internal and external worlds echoing one another. Tell me, does the realism, clashing so vibrantly with the odd stylised background, not conjure for you the most strange dreamscapes? Editor: It definitely messes with your head a bit. But that's also what's so compelling. The snail is so hyperrealistic, you almost feel you can touch it, but the background's, I dunno, sort of minimalist... which does make the snail feel, in effect, totally untethered in space! I keep thinking, whoa, that’s pretty neat! Curator: Neat indeed! But also melancholic; doesn’t the piece imply all our memories and selves, ultimately, will exist untethered in the vast canvas of existence? It seems so sad… Editor: Woah, that's deep! I never thought of it that way. So much more than just a picture of a shell then… Curator: Precisely. A small journey of internal discoveries, each of which, finally, ends up dwarfed by cosmic space. So powerful!