Mircea But

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Mircea But is a contemporary Romanian painter, educated at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, where he completed his studies in 2015. His artistic trajectory is characterised by a continuous negotiation between figuration and abstraction, informed by a lucid engagement with the modernist legacy. Early in his career, he developed a series of monumental abstract landscapes entitled Claude Monet Street, in which he explored the transition from perceptual realism to structural abstraction, reflecting on the evolution of modern painting from Monet’s late works to post-war formalism. His practice frequently examines the visual memory of the landscape - urban or natural - through painterly systems that reinterpret the spacial geometry. In his nonfigurative series produced during a residency at Galeria Plan B in Berlin, But employed photographic fragments of the urban fabric as compositional studies for large canvases treated with plaster and acrylic, occasionally intervened upon with spray paint. These works evoke the eroded surfaces of industrial architecture, their chromatic restraint dominated by greys, lilacs, and muted greens, suggesting a tactile melancholy. In more recent works, the artist returns to recognisable motifs - trees, houses, roads, or crosses - filtered through an introspective vision that emphasizes the sensory experience of colour. His meticulous brushwork constructs a vibratory texture that oscillates between realism and abstraction, generating a visual field where form, matter, and perception coexist. Through this disciplined yet intuitive approach, Mircea But reconsiders painting as both a material process and a vehicle for a renewed phenomenological encounter with reality.