Bogdan Mateias

Maybe it is more than just a coincidence that Bogdan Mateias was born and raised in Tulcea. Tulcea is the last important Romanian city which is passed by the Danube before it flows into the Black Sea. His anthology Playground on riverside shows the wideness of the Danube and the periphery to the horizon, but the sky occupies the most space on the three pictures. These elements are typical for a lot of European landscape. By using domestic object like a buoy, a boot or a pole, which shows the water level and mark of the last flood, the artist changes the European landscape into a domestic one.

The pictured children are inhabitants of the Danube river arm, called Chilia, next to the Ukrainian border. The documentary photos, which were used as pattern, were taken in two different seasons, but the children are showing the same posture. Surprised by the camera the children stopped to play and changed their posture instinctively to a posture, which is typical for the European portraiture of all time.

A new element, which cuts the monotony of the landscape is the portraits of the children on and in front of the landscape. A friendly and innocent note is given to the painting by the depiction of the portraits of the children on the background of the pyramidal construct.

The portrait of the children shows their internal world. They enjoy playing next to the river. Their acting is not influenced by social or economical restrictions. The different perception of the reality is shown by the artist and his working method. By painting the portraits of the children which seem surprisingly fresh, the technical guideline for the painting of landscapes and portraiture are not used anymore.

In his three paintings; medium size, oil on canvas; the painter used special colors for the priming coat to reach a homogenization of the dramatic palette. To gain a contrast between the portraits, the freshness of the landscape and the color explosion of the children portraits they are painted in black and white. They enclose the scene and “ignore” the technical as well as the conceptual guidelines on every color coat.

Text by Ion Stendl, published in the catalog Der Mensch. Der Fluss, page 125, 2011