Pieces from the creators’ souls. How artists leave their artwork, year after year, in Craiova

Pieces from the creators’ souls. How artists leave their artwork, year after year, in Craiova


For several years now, Craiova has become a pole of creation. In fact, to put it bluntly, it has always been. But for some time, through certain ideas put into practice at the right moment, the city does not only enjoy unique events, but these also remain permanently on the streets, in its gardens and parks, through the works of art resulting from these camps and cultural residences. 

Recently, the third edition of Story Wood Cut, a cultural residence that lasts for a few days, of artists who love logs and stomps and do not want to let them die, took place in Craiova. There participants are sculptors which use the chainsaw, and among them is Gabriel Rizea, the man from Craiova who impressed the whole internet with his creations, made firstly on his own street and then in the city parks. 
Story Wood Cut

With each edition, Gabi Rizea and his friends, also art lovers and chainsaw sculptors, gather in Craiova, in the Youth Park, and give life to statues or pieces of urban furniture, on certain themes. This year, "Measured Attitudes" was the given theme, given the rules of social distancing that we will have to follow for a long time to come. Thus, six benches were born, waiting to be discovered by locals and tourists alike, in the next period, in the city. 

Craiova chose to express itself through what it has and to give the artists the chance to create, offering them the possibility to put in their work exactly the experience and inspiration of the city. They leave, in our town, year after year, the immortalization of the moments when they were here and the pure inspiration they had in the given setting. 

Beyond the wooden sculpture, we can't help but talk about "Brâncuși Roads", an extremely interesting symposium that brings sculptors from the country and abroad to Craiova, provoking them, year after year, to create life from pieces of stone. What you see every day in the city, in parks, at intersections or in gardens, is the result of a month's work of the artists mentioned above. From themes such as the Romanian Centenary, Marin Sorescu, Tudor Gheorghe or Adrian Păunescu to generic themes such as sports, the symposium proved to be a real "factory" of works of art that the people of Craiova have the honor to have in their own city. With seven editions already as an experience, "Brâncuși Roads" has given the city dozens of unique works of art. 

It is true that art changes and ennobles the places where it is put, and this can be seen in all the spaces where these works of art exist. It is an artistic civilization that came timidly and gradually, but which has reached the point of noticing its lack when it exists no more.

Starting from the chainsaw sculpture and reaching the stone carving, thus honoring the great Brâncuși, who also studied in Craiova for a few years, we must also remember the young artists who express themselves through the art of the times they were born in. There are graffiti artists painters who see art in a perforated wall and that's exactly what they manage to do with it. To see their canvases painted all over the city, turn the page back and read about them and what they managed to do, either at events such as Street Delivery or at the initiative of the authorities who chose and understood that they need support.

We can only thank each and every one of them for spreading their soul on the walls, in wood and in stone. Otherwise, without them, all of these places in our city would have been extremely dull. 
When art goes out on the streets

Photos: facebook.com/trademro, Facebook Gabi Rizea

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