98. La Cité [1984]

Horia Damian's style is strongly characterized by a particular multidimensionality, through which he manages to edify any fragment or ruin, any trace of demolition. Everything the artist crafts is shrouded in mystery, like a magical ritual of transfiguration, in which the artistic act is discreetly hidden in the cosmogonic utopia of Damian's universe. The artist is constantly researching time through space and manages to define a timeless moment through a palpable frame. The artist saw life as characterized both by ordinary thinking, deeply affected by loneliness and fear of death, and by its hidden dimension, a submerged side that maintains that there is a form of immortality to which every soul will partake. For Damian, it is art that soothes and eclipses the ephemerality of life, that holds hope in the deepest place of our subconscious. The motif of the fortified construction is present in several forms and reinterpretations throughout Horia Damian's creative period. From pyramids, cities and hills to sites and industrial ruins, they all come to represent the same thing, infinity. It is generated by the multiplied elements present in all the artist's constructions, thus building the limitless expanse of time. Whether it's a city, a pyramid, or an oasis of solitude, all of them definitely refer to the only habitable place we can be sure of, the tomb. The architectural elements are organized in rhythms offset by a complex and continuous ascending or lateral movement. Horia Damian's fortified city is uninhabitable, impenetrable, although it represents the eternal hope of a better place, like life after death. But it is built without the intention of being inhabited, being only an embodiment of eternity in a palpable, yet alien world.

Dimensions

depth 55 cm, width 60 cm, height 16 cm, custom 16 × 60 × 55 cm

Description

bronze, signed, dated, numbered and foundry noted bottom right, "Damian, 1984, 2/8, Blanchet Fondeur"

Dating

1984

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