'Bath of an Artist,' by Tunde Darvay, Acrylic Painting on Canvas, 2014

This 32.75" x 61.75" acrylic on canvas painting by Romanian artist, Tunde Darvay features a wood frame of the artists' making. The horizontal mystical landscape is brightly painted with predominant colors of reds, blues, and greens. Surrealistic figures and animals emerge from the landscape and float out into space through the painted frame.

"It is a special piece because instead of painting on wood, as I usually do, here I am reaching back to a somewhat more traditional way of painting on canvas. It is a statement of aesthetic credo depicting an artist who having finished one of her paintings is going through a symbolic rebirth. She is going through a ritual purification by divesting herself of her old self and taking responsibility for her views, principles, and emotions as she is boldly facing a society that is very different from her. " - Tunde Darvay

"Influenced by the unique rural landscapes of Transylvania, the place where I was born and have spent most of my life, my paintings emphasize the shadow-line between the organic and the inorganic. My aesthetic worldview is profoundly mythical: it depicts a world in which color breathes life into inanimate things in order to conjure up playful, suggestive associations along a broad spectrum of themes and forms. Houses have smiling or grinning doors, cheerful, winking, or teary windows, depending on their moody personalities. Chimneys protrude as if they were limbs. Trees hold hands and dance together, witnessed by the curious glance of birds, cats, and fish from behind the bushes. Winding roads follow their spiral course, according to their own precarious will. Color and composition jointly intend to disclose the immense network of cobwebs connecting all these things together, making them part of a highly sensitive organic universe in which every tiny quiver is perceived even in the remotest corners.

In order to achieve this aesthetic effect in my paintings, I continuously strive to blur the spheres to which traditional imagination usually confines things, whether living or inanimate, significant or trivial. The uniquely shaped, handmade wood frames do not enclose but rather extend my works. They invite my compositions to spill over into the fantasy of the beholder. Line and color give shape to things that surface from my memory but also beg to live on and be part of the lives of my audience. I seek to paint birds that uniquely embody all birds, houses that somehow envision all houses, and colors that include all the colors from dawn to dusk.
I guess the reason why children have always been especially responsive to my work is because they still possess the intuitive understanding of such a universe in which everything is connected. After all, who is to tell when childhood ends?" - Tunde Darvay, Artist Statement

I was born in in Transylvania and educated at The University of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where I earned my BFA degree in 2003. From as early as my high-school years, I have participated regularly in national and international exhibitions. From 2004 to 2017, I lived in the United States and I was a full-time professional artist. I currently live in Cluj-Napoca where I continue my career as an artist.
My works are visual representations of the fusion between Transylvanian and American culture.
My paintings typically feature uniquely shaped wood frames that serve not to enclose but rather to extend and complement the composition. I usually take inspiration from everyday life but also from Hungarian folk tales, Greek and Roman mythology, film, poetry, music, and really from anything that comes my way and inspires me.