19. About Flight [2022]

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Roxana Scripcaru

Head of the Romanian Postmodern & Contemporary Art Evaluation Office

0736 381 153 roxana.scripcaru@artmark.ro

19. About Flight [2022]

Felix Aftene

1972, Vaslui

Estimate:

EUR 5.000 - 8.000

Sold

EUR 5.000

bronze, 53 x 41 x 51 cm, signed and dated at the base, "FELIX AFTENE, (20)22"

Taking full advantage of his creative potential, Felix Aftene skillfully brings his works out of the two-dimensional plane of the canvas and into the three-dimensional medium crafted from bronze, plaster, wood, resin, metal, or fiberglass. In this way, he sculpts his artistic ideas, successfully grabbing the viewer's attention through the diversity of mediums used. He uses flight as the leitmotif of his work and raises it to the level of art. The manierism, which promotes reverie, is amplified by the metaphysical representation of the specifics of human beings, and the levitation of the characters proposed by the artist (especially in painting) reminds us of the surrealistic flight of Marc Chagall's protagonists. In Felix Aftene's works, blue appears through an oxymoronic association between flight and fall, and through the antithetic juxtaposition of the energetic and electrifying accents with the more subdued hues that overflow with tranquillity and melancholy. However, this time, a new, perhaps unusual element is added to the representative character of his work, in harmony with it. This artwork is a tribute to Aurel Vlaicu, who in 1910 made the first flight with an airplane that he designed himself, in Romania. With his high school education completed in Sibiu and university education in Budapest and Munich, the young engineer managed to acquire the necessary knowledge to design his own flying machine. Thus, he put Romania in a position of honor, alongside the United States and France, among the countries on whose territory a flying machine, designed, built, and piloted by a citizen of that geographical space, was put into operation. The event was extensively commented on in the local press of the time and also featured in international publications. Through the colors and materials used, the artist creates an intentional dissonance between the protagonist and the airplane. From the preciousness of golden glows to the oxidized appearance of the flying machine, Felix Aftene skillfully presents a fascinating history, marked equally by triumphs and tragedies, bringing to the public's attention a tribute to the engineer, inventor and pilot Aurel Vlaicu.

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