BOGDAN TOPÎRCEANU
THE INNER MIRROR
There is a play by the Romanian play writer Marin Sorescu, which imagines a slightly different story for the Biblical character of Jonah, turning the exile inside the whale’s belly into a journey of self-discovery. The fact is, that I always wondered what happens to Jonah after the curtain falls. What happens after he cuts himself open? If by exploring and cutting in its outside world all he could find were bigger and bigger whale bellies, but never himself, what will he find inside his own self? Will he find himself or something else? Will he cut himself once to find the answer, or will he keep doing that infinitly? A similar sensation as concerning to Jonah’s faith, I have regarding the process of drawing. In my vision, when the pencil touches the paper it becomes a scalpel who cuts in our depth with precision. Even if we don’t arrive in a specific place (even though, like in Jonah’s case, we probably will never know if there is a final destination or the road itself is the purpose of the journey) we are all the lines that we draw, we are all the layers that we cut open. With every line, with every incision that we make, we find something new about ourselves, about our inner space, our inner selves.
In Jonah’s vision, the exploration of the exterior world will bring him knowledge of his own self, and the true discovery of his identity. This quest in the outside world to find his inner self brings him to alienation. At the end of the play he doesn’t even identify himself anymore with the name of Jonah. „Jonah” becomes someone other than him, losing his identity completely. I find Marin Sorescu’s vision meaningful, because it brings back the focus upon one’s interiority/individuality in opposition with man’s search for objective knowledge. It explores the possibility of subjective knowledge, so that the more you dig into one’s self, the more clearly you will perceive the outer world, and not the other way around. This is also a personal conclusion which I decided to explore in this drawings installation. Drawing for me is a process of introspection. The same way a mirror reveals one’s image, drawing reveals one’s self.
The act of drawing is for me a process of clarifying oneself with itself. It’s an inner journey to one’s self. The whole creative process of this work navigates around the matter of introspection, the space in which it occurs, and drawing as a means of searching for one’s self, more specifically defining a space which helps me find balance in everyday life, by reuniting three major elements of my existence: music, nature and drawing. It is a space of self-discovery through the means of drawing.
The page on which I draw becomes a liminal space where my inner world collides with the outside world, slowly helping me define my own identity.
2016
BOGDAN TOPÎRCEANU
THE BLACK MIRROR
As I said before, the act of drawing is nothing more than the reconstruction of one’s self as a mirror. Every line drawn on the paper's surface, cuts inside ourselves the same way a scalpel does the living tissue, only to reveal new and new layers of our own personality. You may never know when you will have reached the utmost level of self-knowledge, but you may always persevere in your search.
The mirror we build is, though, not always a source of light.
2016
BOGDAN TOPÎRCEANU
BORDERLINE
Finding himself in a perpetual transition in between states, never fixed in one single point or under one single identity, man turns out to be a liminal being.
In a borderline state. He marks his distances with questions about his place and his existence, when the place for him, is exactly the place in which he finds himself. In between two heartbeats. In between life and death. Never left, never arrived, but in a perpetual journey, his existence always drawn towards the horizon.
A line that separates the planes like the graphite trace of a crayon separates surfaces when it draws itself on paper. The horizon, itself, another type of cut in which lie probabilities yet to be discovered, possibilities yet to be explored and inside which resides, in the end, for each and everyone of us a wish for identity and knowledge.
The answers lie embedded in the road.
One line to tame them all.
One cut to heal all others.
2016
BOGDAN TOPÎRCEANU
THE INNER SPACE
In order to exit, you must first of all enter. In order to learn more about the outer world, you must first of all explore the intricacies of your own self; you must assess your variable position in between the Zenith and the Nadir, points which will constantly remain equally distant from each other. You, yourself, the only variable. A borderline state, in between the shapes and constant transformations of the people and of the world surrounding you, inside which your own self forms. A perpetual conflictual state, which, though, defines oneself. By the hazards of the universe or by divine will, you exist. Right on the edge. In the place from which you can watch both the vault of heaven, and the vast depths of unexplored space. A calm in between storms.
A man in between life and death. Contemplating its own mortality under the brightly dark shelter of the night. A vast space, absorbed inside oneself, as a place of refuge, as a place of calming down of all your anxieties.
A piece of paper on which lines and words are written. An inner sky on which all your puzzles, curiosities and questions are to be spelled.
2017
BOGDAN TOPÎRCEANU
SHORELINE
The sea has been the matter of my dreams for many years now. Always different. Wind, water, light. It became in time, a symbol of loss and also, a representation of my own fear of not losing control, of not losing myself. A definition of my own identity which I thought I knew thoroughly, proved to be, in the last few years of inner exploration, only a shard of its entierty. After travelling far and wide along the lines of this self-generated initiatic road, I feel as if I have reached a threshold. A liminal space beyond which lies a world yet to be discovered.
This moment represents the contemplation of the journey I have so far completed and of the one yet to come.
I step away from the shoreline, leaving the sea’s liquid labyrinth behind.
It’s time for new borderlines to be crossed. For new, still unshaped, pathways to be travelled. The only certainty remains the unexplored ground underneath my soles.
From the edges of some far away fields,
a fresh wind crawls silently, bringing with him the smell of rain.
Production:
Bogdan Topîrceanu, Ioana-Cristina Topîrceanu, Cristian Topîrceanu
PETRICHOIR
NOUN
"A pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather."
From time to time, in days such as this, with curtains of dark rain, with nights lighted only by window panes, a moment of clarity appears. Looking through the glass, into the mirroring darkness ahead, you see not only yourself, but also everything you left behind. All the doors you passed through, all the roads you’ve taken, all the past things which are now part of you.
A weightless and transitory moment, who’s tranquility will only appear anew
in the next state of passing, from one path to the other.
2018
BOGDAN TOPÎRCEANU
THE HEART OF THE SEA
You all know the sound you hear when you place a shell near your ear. We all say it's the murmur of the sea. But it only is a reflection of ourselves. An echo of our own minds.
You drop the shell from your hand and let yourself fall into the water's embrace.
Once achieved the maximum depth the body can handle, you can feel the adrenaline rushing through your whole body, invading your eardrums, your eyes, you mind. Deep sea divers say they feel almost like sea creatures then. But in this case it's only you. Left by yourself, only with yourself.
The black waters of the sea surrounding you, leave no room for shelter. You are left to confront yourself. Face to face with your own image, you have to choose. You have to listen. You have to dig deep. Unravel layer after layer, until you have become one with the sea and the sea has become a part of you.
In a liquid state you return to shore.
You hear its heart beating in your chest, and your heart crashing into waves on the sandy shores.
2019
BOGDAN TOPÎRCEANU
CRYSTALLIZED SHARDS
Unlike anterior projects, Crystallized Shards represents rather than a finished project,
a series of highlighted symbols of my own experience.
Dark places, hopes, anxieties, happiness. All materialized into geometrical shapes.
For our thoughts rush constantly through our minds, in a ceaseless stream. Thus we carry around a permanent inner monologue.
Past experiences mix with questions, observations, opinions, joys, fears or anguish.
Sometimes they all crystallize in symbols and furthermore in drawings which we project outside of ourselves.
These artifacts of the mind allow us to further our analysis of our inner workings, sometimes to such an extent, that entire subjective alphabets take shape.