Art in Conversation with Florin Bejinari
ABOUT THE ARTIST
A native naive painter. Florin Bejinari from Radauti, at this moment, represents the flag bearer of naive painting in the wonderful land of southern Bukovina. He is the successor of some appreciated naive painters of this spiritual-cultural-artistic space, such as Cotlet and Ciuhan from Cajvana, or Romeo Calancea from Suceava. As it is known, in time, the naive painting market marked a constant demand both in our country and in other lands. The constant love for folk art was augmented by the constant search, at the springs, for the purpose and imperative of knowing the roots of the local traditions. This explains the clear narration, the chromatic perfectly suited to the realization of his bright paintings, as well as the wise choice of the thematic cycles proposed to the lover of naive art.
Mihai Panzaru-PIM, graphic designer, U.A.P.R.
Extract foreword on
Florin Bejinari's Paintings and poems album "Chromatic rhymes", 2020
FLORIN BEJINARI
Painter | Romania
Artist Statement
"Naive painting represents the world seen through the eyes of a child but lived with the experience of an adult."
Florin Bejinari (b. 1961, Radauti, Bucovina) self-taught craftsman, iconographer
5 years ago, Mihai Panzaru Pim (graphic artist and caricaturist) proposed to me to approach the naive painting style. It was another beginning, a challenge. Although I already had this in mind, the master's proposal motivated me even more. “Don't look at how professionals with academic studies paint. You use your imagination and paint as you feel. ” And so I did. I soaked the brush first in the soul, then in the color.
I had already experimented with naive painting on ostrich and goose eggshells and had over 20 years of experience in religious painting on eggshells. Whether in Byzantine icons or painting on egg, glass or stone, I used tempera colors with egg emulsion, my naive paintings are painted with oil colors. Nothing is accidental! It probably took the experience of a lifetime to put it that way. The peace felt in the painting of Byzantine icons turns into a restlessness of searching for symbols.
The village of Bucovina, with its traditions, spiced with a little humor, irony, is present in almost all my paintings, because the most perfect icon of the Romanian people draws its sap, in its genius, in all its simplicity. Like the saints in the icons, the peasants I paint are devoid of the carnal consistency of matter, leaving no shadows around them; they almost simply float in space with which they merge or complete. The feeling of love is as innocent and pure and unreal as in Romanian fairy tales. "The power of love", "The vigor of love" are just some of the titles that depict this feeling. I like to tell stories through colors, not just to portray some places, houses or mountains. I want my message to be perceived by the viewer as a story of colors.
EXHIBITIONS
2017 - SIAN Bucharest
2018 - 2020 - Saloanele Moldovei
2019 - International Exhibition Naive Art ”Gheorghe Sturza”
7th edition, Botosani, Romania
PUBLICATIONS
Paintings and poems album "Chromatic rhymes" - published by Bifrost, Romania, December 2020
AWARDS:
3rd Prize- SIAN Bucharest 2017
3rd Prize, Naive Art Salon 2021