The artist’s paradox is that his painting appears as classical painting in relation to modernity and, at the same time, avant-garde compared to traditional. The goon news is that we are dealing with a consistent modus operandi and that the artist consistently follows his way. Far from the great noises of art, Mănăstireanu counts on the parts of silence, looking for the light elsewhere than in the pigment mixtures, optical mixtures or stage-lighting. Being a fervent portrait painter, he is interested in those that are beyond appearances. Thus, his characters live independently from the models underlying their conceptions,they have biography, inner universe, sometimes even apper to breather and have pulse, to assume a famous giorgiovasarian speculation. Oscillating between evocativ signs and anamorphosis, the artist actually sets his creations in an oneiric area. In other words, the subjective dimension finds an interesting junction with the collective unconscious, meeting held under the aegis of some representation that are not in the least narrative, nowise tributary. Neither the landscape nor still life, genres maybe too rarely treated compared to the artist’s potential are not to be outdone.
Mihai Plămădeala, art critic
