The Multiple Universe of Georgeta Năpăruș

The entire human and artistic destiny of Georgeta Năpăruș was built gradually, through the tireless exploration of a world that seems to have disappeared from the horizon of contemporary life. With remarkable vitality, tempered by a gentle irony and a profound melancholy, she reactivated that unrepeatable moment when the infinite variations of life coexisted in a paradisiacal state, untouched by any vain desire for supremacy. The human, in its mythical dimension, situated within a diffuse ethnographic space, alongside the zoological and the signs of timeless civilizations, permanently inhabit the same unified register of an undifferentiated world.

Although seemingly derived from folkloric epic and the narrative richness of rural imagination—appearing as playful exercises or self-sufficient spectacles—Georgeta Năpăruș’s compositions are, in fact, expansive reflections on creation, generative energies, and the imperative of being. Like the Creator himself, who neither selects, nor explains, nor favors, Georgeta Năpăruș regards everything with equal wonder and an equal sense of love.

Whether disseminating forms across a unified field or arranging them into rigorously differentiated registers, the artist’s gaze operates on a single plane, refusing any temptation of hierarchy. The solitary, schematic figure—over which tones and transparencies, chromatic modulations, and graphic separations of inexhaustible richness unfold—coexists alongside zoological anatomies or the outline of technical constructions, all sharing the same space, untainted by the dominance of one realm over another. If a certain focal point emerges, it is not through deliberate or calculated action, but through the suggestive power—akin to children’s drawings—of an unpredictable emotional perspective. The enlargement of a form, its chromatic emphasis, the interference of registers, or subtle découpage against a highly refined background, all serve as primary means of guiding the gaze and avoiding monotony.

Although the vertical succession of registers and the horizontal rhythm of elements might suggest a narrative reading, the images of Georgeta Năpăruș are in fact far removed from external storytelling or any form of rhetorical discourse. Despite sharing the same plane, her forms communicate only plastically. Though close, they remain autonomous; though juxtaposed, they ultimately exist in solitude. The painting thus becomes an expanded image of the world and an extended metaphor of reality itself—yet a reality that has emerged from amorphous origins and fully experiences maximum diversity within exemplary unity. In a certain sense, the artist revisits, on a different scale—less mechanical and therefore less predictable—the totalizing vision of Arcimboldo. However, the portrait now departs from the particular, from its anthropomorphic rigor, expanding toward apparent dissolution. Yet the strategy of perception remains largely unchanged. The eye oscillates in the same way, caught in the same profound indecision, compelled to move constantly between part and whole. Between a whole infinite in its proliferating force, extending beyond the physical constraints of space, and a part that itself bears witness to the whole through the richness of suggestions condensed within a defined field.

Like Arcimboldo, Georgeta Năpăruș creates visual metonymies and redefines concepts within the realm of the imaginary. Her universe—so comfortable and generous at first glance—is, in its depth, a poignant attempt to preserve the multidimensionality of a world undermined by ignorance and perpetually threatened by oblivion. Where the eye seeks stories, small narratives, and simple joys, deeper layers await—principles, emblematic forms, and reflections of primordial existences. No matter how familiar her characters, bestiary, and entire visual inventory may appear, they are neither the result of mimetic skill, nor mere props in theatrical arrangements, nor simply stronger accents of local color.

Timeless, like Neolithic dolls translated into two dimensions and only just emerging from magmatic backgrounds, these forms represent the magical incisions of a reawakened memory. If humor and irony sometimes accompany them, if a diffuse joy permeates every corner of the image and the pleasure of expression merges with the entire visual ritual, this does not imply that relativism infiltrates their atemporal stillness. Rather, everything acquires vitality and immediate presence.

Georgeta Năpăruș possesses a unique ability to reconcile the sense of duration with the iridescence of the moment, the archetypal with spontaneity, and the severity of statement with the joy of vision.

Pavel Șușară

 

For nearly forty years, throughout a career spanning from 1957 to 1996, Georgeta Năpăruș was known primarily for her painting. In the 1990s, she began experimenting with object-based art (“The Horse” at MNAC, bread figurines, the go board, painted abacuses). In the final two years of her life, limited in mobility due to illness, she produced at least 120 drawings and watercolors, now held in several private collections. The present exhibition features approximately half of this body of work, shedding light on a new and surprisingly vibrant dimension of the artist’s oeuvre. Her graphic work appears almost as a beginning, even though it was created under the shadow of an ending—a modest tribute to creativity.

Ilie Grigorescu