Georges Mazilu – The Blue Pearl

$23,000

SKU: 23105

Artwork Description

Georges Mazilu – The Blue Pearl

Dimensions: 42.75 x 50.5″ framed / 39.5 x 47.3″ unframed
Year: 2016
Medium: acrylic on linen

In the Blue Pearl, Mazilu appears to place to separate narratives within a single scene, allowing viewers to speculate about the relationship between the two unclothed women and the figure handling the dog in the background. Mazilu implies a sense of contrast between the various characters, revealed through stylistic and color difference, and giving rise to a series of questions: is the pearl something sacred or sacrilegious? Why are two of the women nude and the third fully dressed? Will the three interact beyond the depicted moment?

While Georges Mazilu’s oeuvre often focuses on the human form—despite his characters’ unusual proportions and physical compositions—his works begin as loose abstractions that gain recognizability through process. Mazilu describes his paintings as mapping the transition from unconscious to conscious processing and often navigate the tension between his ‘will’ and ‘possibilities’. Mazilu was born in Romania and quickly developed an affinity for producing art, eventually pursuing formal training at the prestigious Grigorescu Institute of Fine Arts. After following what might be considered a classical education, Mazilu’s work began to develop a contemporary edge as it encountered the swell of modern art. Mazilu’s works often combine realism with the absurd and touch on the styles of canonical surrealist artists like Hieronymus Bosch or Salvador Dali. Mazilu’s paintings employ muted color palettes and simple backgrounds, drawing viewers’ attention to his carefully rendered characters posing in formal portraiture style or displaying less-than-human behavior.

Georges Mazilu escaped Romania during the Ceausescu regime, in the early 1980s.  He spent numerous years living and painting in France and Spain.  His works are in esteemed musuem collections throughout the world, including those of the Denver Art Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Tucson Museum of Art.  The most recent museum to acquire his paintings is in Australia, and the earliest museum to aquire his works was the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sofia, Bulgaria.  Mazilu is a highly collectible artist, with a monograph written by Sam Hunter, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Princeton University, and several essays by South African Anti-Apartheid author, Andre Brunke.

By Keira Seidenberg, Art History/Gender Studies student, McGill University