Approaching and moving away from nature in the work of Ioan Iacob

Ioan Iacob presents to the public (very recent) works, individualized by a particular interest in nature. The artist who stated five years ago in an interview that "the abstract and the figurative intersect even today, mutely, in my painting" looks at nature in a visual exercise that goes beyond the landscape as a traditional genre, trying to understand the mystery or the "spirit ” hidden behind particular/accidental/random forms.

Comparing the paintings from the two distinct cycles - Night on Earth and Fallen Birch strikes, on the other hand, the effectiveness of the dialogue of distinct points of view cultivated by the painter: the distant view (Fernsicht) in the first and the close view (Nahsicht) in the second . Thus, "Night on Earth" seems to embody a spectral vision, in which forms are essentialized, rather suggesting a frightening universe or, in other words, generic nature threatened by an imminent catastrophe. On the contrary, the "Fallen Birch" explicitly figures, through the force of the fragment and the consciously cultivated detail, the drama of nature becoming a victim of human intervention. The fallen tree is the tree cut down and killed by the hand/tool ​​of man.

However, the two cycles meet in an ecological message, in which I read a cry of alarm, expressed by the artist with his specific means, more precisely through the expressive force of color. Let's not forget that Ioan Iacob is a great colorist, considering that "every color has its life. An extraordinary life, which manifests itself through an indescribable light".

- Ruxandra Demetrescu