Sebastian Hosu

My painting depicts reality – my reality. This also encompasses my idea of nature, which is in turn an expression of this reality. I see nature as a presence in painting that is archetypical and not illustrative. But what is nature? Something that leads the way and where we belong? Still? Or a long-forgotten experience, replaced and superseded by the virtual reality of our modern times?

In my work, I seek to answer these questions not by the means of rational capacity, but through art. In my paintings, memories of a natural presence emerge. Sebastian Hosu explores the human figure. In his large and colorful canvasses he depicts fragmented and incomplete bodies, yet they are not disfigured or mutilated but seem to dissolve into abstraction. On closer look however they simply blend into the space in which they exist. They are being absorbed by a swooping energy, merging with the landscape; dissolving the hierarchy between space and figure. The relation between society and it’s environment, the human in connection or disconnection with nature, is a recurring theme in Hosu’s paintings.

Hosu: 'It is not a nostalgic retrospection on the condition before the clash between nature and culture. Also, it is no illusion of an ideal world. The composition lives and breathes in its instability which through its restlessness fractures the desired harmony between ‘green body’ and wideness of space that are shown in a dialectical discrepancy. I have been occupied with this restlessness or dynamic in the art of painting for a long time'.