VLADIMIR BACIU ULTRAMARINE | Vladimir Baciu 60

A member of the Estonian Artists' Union, Moldovan-born painter Vladimir Baciu has been painting his way into the local art community for many decades. His predominantly sunny palette is mostly expressed in landscape paintings and cityscapes. Baciu can be considered an author who works with a conviction in the traditional style of painting and loves to paint from nature. He can also be seen on the street corners of Tallinn, where the artist captures the ever-unique light of his now-familiar hometown with his brush. In addition to Tallinn, Baciu has also painted cities that carry and inspire European culture, such as Paris or Venice, etc. The exhibition hall dedicated to the artist's 60th anniversary contains the most precious emotional captures of these architectural and historical cities, especially Venice, for him.

In terms of themes and compositions, the exhibition is more of a cross-section of the artist's preferences, where soft green natural fields, reedy coastlines, sparkling flower fields and colorful rhythmic cities form a single emotional whole, a vibrantly picturesque pictorial landscape, through which to walk and refresh the senses in the middle of a gray, crisp winter. The artist completed these seemingly timeless paintings in 2024, with this anniversary exhibition in mind.

The title of the exhibition "Ultramarine" comes from the bright blue color that the author has used throughout his works. On the other hand, this expensive pigment, historically obtained from the semi-precious stone lazurite, also refers to the preciousness of creation more broadly - to the importance of creative expression, dedication and living through art, as Vladimir Baciu has done and does to this day. His painting is like a focused and conscious breathing in every everyday and festive day, from which colorful writings are born on the canvases - clearly legible but also illegible texts hidden behind words like ultramarine, the beautiful tone of which can only be conveyed by authentically experiencing the color itself with your own eyes.

Vladimir Baciu was born in 1965 in the village of Giliceni, Moldova. In 1984, he graduated from the I. Repin Art School in Chisinau with a degree in painter-pedagogue. He has lived and worked in Tallinn since 1985. The artist has organized numerous personal exhibitions both in Estonia and abroad, and has participated in more than 40 joint exhibitions, including in his beloved France, where he also speaks French. His works are in private collections and galleries in Estonia, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, the United States, Argentina, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Moldova, Italy, Mexico, etc.

Text: Piia Ausman, Haus Gallery's gallerist and curator