Virtosu Dominic-Petru

Lives and works in Roubaix, France

Artist statement

My works are about exploring a visual universe marked by constantly playing with various symbols and iconic structures and by constantly creating new connections. For me they are about strangeness and eeriness and also about not knowing where the work will take me. I am very interested in creating multidimensional compositional spaces with a focus not on how but rather on what is expressed. With this intention in mind I sometimes choose to play with the flat surface of the canvas by adding iterations and variations of other cut-up images, visual reminiscences and citations on top to create unexpected dimensionalities, stratifications, displacements and dialogues. I also like to play with strange environments and textures that permeate from one object to another. Not knowing where a thing ends and another begins is like playing with organic boundaries: the set line is never where it is expected. I am constantly adding and subtracting from various parts of the image until I achieve the satisfactory level of depth and although I focus mainly on painting as a technique (because I still find in it something that is profoundly linked to a foundational substratum of expression), my creative process means that I am constantly searching and renewing my technique to fit the subject matter. This means that I enjoy the flexibility of working in various mediums and styles. I use these imaginative ruptures and bursts to structure the way each piece falls into this storyboard of tightly...

Artwork