ROLAND PANGRATI / BULGARIA

Roland Pangrati (born 1074 in Galati, Romania), is a visual artist, graduated from the National University of Arts Bucharest (Faculty of Decorative Arts and Design) in year 1999.

After several years experimenting with various techniques and creative directions, followed by two decades of activity in pursuit of professional design, Roland Pangrati, bravely decided to return to his great passion: painting. A trip to Japan, in 2018, brought him closer to the themes and manner of a school he was passionate about as a young artist, that of traditional Japanese painting. He spent several months in the Land of the Rising Sun and took classes in Nihonga (literally, "the art of Japanese painting") at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku. He was instructed in understanding and applying the aesthetic principles of the traditional techniques. Following this veritable apprenticeship, he decided to use the education creatively, building his own style, marked by personal experiences and experiments, by modernity and by themes transcending spatial and temporal landmarks.
Back in Romania, he continued with the series "Rocks", started in Japan, but also experimented on large surfaces, composing works inspired by nature and limited to rigorous aesthetics and the black and white, light and shadow game (as the "Waterfall" diptich), and with works in which he used azurite, gold and silver, influenced by Japanese haiku legends and poems ("ReSonance").
Pangrati's work outlines his own style, creatively reinterpreting the seven precepts of beauty in the Japanese art: Kanso - simplicity, Fukinsei - asymmetry, Shibui - minimalism, simple elegance, Shizen - naturalness, Yugen – suggestion or deep analysis, Datsuzoka – surprise (but also fresh creativity) and Seijaku - calmness. Starting from universal themes and approaching them in a way that respects the Nihonga technique, the artist interprets freely the aesthetic rules of Japanese art, seeking in recent work, more and more universal sources of inspiration and building his own artistic vision. Building a bridge between postmodernism and traditional Japanese painting, his research is related to contrasting aspects of nature, but also to the changes brought to it by civilization - the restriction of the natural environment, desertification, compression of the horizon, invasion of outer space.

“In my paintings I have always experimented, trying to express the essence - for example, in the series «Rocks», I seeked the essence of the stone and not necessarily wanted  to recreate a certain rocky area. The intention is not to render something material, even when the source of inspiration exists in nature, but to abstract. My effort is aimed at shaping a free, fluent style that incorporates Nihonga techniques into a contemporary expression, in exploring a world revealed in its essential and fundamental beauty. I try to create a multisensory and synesthetic universe.”, reveals the artist.

The refusal of boundaries between "here" and "there", the choice of visual elements that transcend the space-time landmark without constraints, such as the water, the ground, the celestial bodies, are all invitations for an ontological meditation, but leaving to the viewer the option to stand still and  experience the aesthetic appreciation only.

The solo show "The Moon Glows the Same" (2021-2022) itinerant exhibition project, 2021-2022, under the patronage of the Embassy of Japan in Romania, celebrating one hundred years of bilateral relation between Romania and Japan, includes works from several recent creative cycles of Pangrati. The title is inspired by a well-known haiku by Basho, the founding poet of the modern haiku style in the 17th century: "The Moon glows the same / it is the drifting cloud forms / make it seem to change". This is one of the haikus using natural imagery to convey one universal message about life and spirituality, a seventeen-syllable commentary on the relationship between the infinite and unchanging nature of the moon and the temperate and changing clouds. The series of twelve panels accounting for the work «ReSonance» is executed in acrylic colors and natural mineral pigments, with foil and colloidal solution of gold, silver and copper on Japanese paper mounted on wood panels, and the works from the series «Rocks» are painted with pigment on japanese mulberry paper.
After the exhibition was presented at the Art Museum of the “Moldova” Museums Complex Iasi (where she was accompanied by a seminar on the technique of Nihonga painting), between 8th of December 2021  and 31st of January 2022, "The Moon Glows the Same", was displayed at the National Museum of Bukovina in Suceava between 2nd of February and 23rd of March 2022. From 30th of April  to the end of May, "The Moon Glows the Same" was hosted by the Multicultural Center of the "Transylvania" University Brasov, where thousands of visitors came during the “European Night of Museums” only. The show was displayed at the Bookfest Bucharest 2022, in the Japanese pavilion (Japan being the guest of honor of the edition) and then in the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant Bucharest.(Curator of the project, Cristina Simion)

Solo Exhibition
The Moon Glows the Same, (2021-2022) itinerant exhibition project, under the patronage of the Embassy of Japan in Romania, celebrating one hundred years of bilateral relation between Romania and Japan
2022 - June 9th –June 19th, The Moon Glows the Same, Muzeul Național al Țăranului Român, SALA IRINA NICOLAU, Bucuresti
2022 - June 1th – June 5th, The Moon Glows the Same, Pavilion of Japan, , Special  Guest Country to  Bookfest 2022 Edition, Romexpo, B2, Bucharest
2022 -  April, 30th- May 27th, The Moon Glows the Same; The Multicultural Centre of Transylvania University Brasov
2022 - May 14th, The Moon Glows the Same , European Night of Museums, 2022; The Multicultural Centre of Transylvania University Brasov
2022 - February 2nd- Marth 22th 2022, The Moon Glows the Same The National Museum of Bukovina, Suceava
2021 -  December 8th 2021- January 31th 2022, The Moon Glows the Same Museum of Art, The Culture Palace , Iasi


2021 - Eclectic Fusion,  Galerie 10, St.Moritz, Switzerland;
2021 -  Rocks, Galerie Floraison, Tokyo, Japan;
2021 - Stardust, Galeria Nicolae Mantu, Galati;
2021 - Trilogy, Art Gallery Braila
2020 - Reflection, Galerie Floraison, Tokyo, Japan; ReConnect, Galeria Nicolae Mantu, Galati
2019 -  ReSonance, European Night of Museums
2019 - ReSonance, Galeria Nicolae Mantu, Galati
2011 - Inexistent  Knight , Metropolis Center, Bucharest
2009 -  Caryatid, sculptures, Le Gaga Club, Bucharest , Romania    
2008 -  Giants, sculptures, Leon Center, Cluj-Napoca, Romania     
2001 -  Renascence Experience , National University of Arts, Bucharest, Romania

Group Exhibition
2021 -  S.N.A.C, Galeria SENAT, Bucharest
2021 -  Blue Bienalle, 2nd International Bienalle of Visual Art, Brasov
2021 -  Salon of Artists, Galeria Nicolae Mantu, Galati
2020 - Bucharest Art Salon of Artists; Visual Art Center, Bucharest
2020 -  Binnale of Arts Gheorghe Petrascu, Buzau;
2020 -  Binnale of Arts Camil Ressu, Galati;  Salons of Moldavia, Bacau-Chisinau;
2020 - Salon of Artists, Galeria Nicolae Mantu, Galati
2019 - Waltz of Danube in Colors, Visual Art Museum, Galati - Plain Air Painting Contest;
2019 - Salon of Artists, Galeria Nicolae Mantu, Galati,
2019 - Salons of Moldavia, Bacau-Chisinau
2018 - Salons of Moldavia, Bacau-Chisinau;
2018 - Salon of Artists, Galeria Nicolae Mantu, Galati
1998 - Art Fair, Museum of Visual Art, Galati

Awards
2021 -  Nomination, Top 10 Artists, Seongnam Art Fair, Seongnam City, South Coreea.
2021 - Nomination, Saloons of Moldavia, Bacau, Romania and  Chisinau, Moldavia
2019 - 1st Prize, Waltz of Danube in Colors, Contest,  Museum of Visual Arts, Galati

Public Presentation | Urban Art
2021 -  Rockstar, Instalațion metal, inox and natural stone,  600x1200 cm, Galați, Romania
2021 -  Phoenix, Sculpture, metal, inox, 300 x 600 cm, Galați, Romania
2020 - Make it Blue, Digital print,  Inelul de Rocadă, Galati, Romania, Romania 
2013 -  Ruts and Burgeons, zgraffito , 1700 x 12 000 cm, Viva Park, Galați, Romania

Public Collections, Museums
Museum of Visual Arts, Galati
Artworks in private collections in Romania, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, USA, and Mexic