Costel Iarca

Interview by Julia Ann Charpentier

Chicago artist Costel Iarca has captured attention on the international art scene for a patented application technique that leaves the canvas three-dimensional. This process involves layering latex caulk and acrylic paint, giving depth and definition to the surface of his unique abstract and figurative paintings.

His work reflects a post-Cubist Picasso influence, yet reveals the dynamic personality of the man who created it. Filled with warmth and appreciation for life, he defines art as "human magic," every painting like a poem or a musical composition. He hopes others will find beauty in his depictions and believes art belongs to the soul.

Iarca states there is no "bottom line" in art. He believes a painting is always incomplete, and its incompleteness fascinates him, driving him to reflect on the perfection and imperfection of the world and the human soul. Today, he emulates no one and can relate to a predecessor like Picasso who spent a lifetime honing his talent.

Born in Valea, Romania, in 1963, Iarca received his B.A. at the School of Popular Art in Tirgoviste in 1982 and went on to study at the University of Theology in Transylvania. His background in religion and philosophy enhances his creations. He suffered under Communist suppression until 1989 and emigrated to the Unied States in 1994, receiving political asylum.

Since 1998 Iarca has operated several of his own galleries throughout Chicago, the most recent on Michigan Avenue, as well as seeing his work showcased at the Agora Gallery and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. His most recent exhibitions were at the MacNider Art Museum in Mason City, Iowa, and at the Andrews Art Museum in North Carolina.

Historians place abstract art into two categories — geometric and intuitive. In which group do you belong?

I can work with emotion. You take something from the inside, and then you see the new elements. So you go and add something, and maybe you have some emotion. You go with that. But the second day you come with a new emotion, so it doesn't look as it did the previous day. It looks, maybe, ugly. What you did the other day looked beautiful. When I painted the first time, I changed it, and I changed it, and then I changed it like twenty-five times based on my moods, my emotions. I still leave some elements when I impose elements in a painting. One was very abstract and basically of color, gestural movement, but then I brought some figural elements. So you bring some visual things into that painting, not just what is inside.

Does figurative work require more technical skill?

No. Even that gestural thing, that movement of the brush, or just simple color… to go and to add twenty layers on one painting involves labor. Some people think figurative will take mandatory, more time.

You studied Cubism and Surrealism. Which of these schools had the greatest impact on your career?

Surrealism comes, like the Surrealists say, from under consciousness. There's some image that remains always in the subconscious. I started in a classical way, and I thought to achieve that it's a big deal. But when I'd done that, and I saw abstract, I said, "This is a big deal to do this too." So many people say, "Oh, I can do that." It's a big, bad lie. I started to experience that it takes not ten times, a hundred times more color. Abstract uses more color than classical. In a classical work you control everything, the color, the movement. In abstract you control, but you cannot control everything. You have to change and wipe off that spot of color, that layer, so you come over the red with white. In a classical work, if you see a green leaf, you take green color, and you go and fill that spot with green. In abstract, the position of a flower you might change; in a classical one, little things here and there. But in abstract you change so many times.