Street art involves a vulnerable, unfiltered exposure, he believes Vlad Pascadesigner and visual artist. Born in 1987, in Baia Mare, and trained in Cluj-Napoca, Vlad continued his artistic education in Bucharest, where he also found his creative maturity. A graduate of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Department of Design, and a master’s degree at the National University of Arts in Bucharest, Department of Environmental Design, he combines academic training with a strong and sensitive artistic vision.
With an active presence in collective exhibitions and an ever-growing portfolio, Vlad describes his creative process as a journey through emotions, consciousness and transformation.
“Street art is at the same time freer as an artistic expression, but also dependent, interconnected and directly conditioned by the environment in which lives”, says Vlad.
Within the Artown Festival, Vlad Pașca participated with innovative interventions, which is why I also talked about the experience he had at the festival, the role of street interventions, but also themes, places or communities with which he would like to interact in a special way.
The Artown Festival experience
I had heard of Artown Festival from the internet since the first edition. The second edition piqued my curiosity, but also my interest in participating as an artist. And here, at the third edition, it happened. Everything worked great for me smooth. From the communication and collaboration with the organizers during the open call period to the postfest follow-up, everything built a beautiful and memorable experience.
I had the entire festival team by my side from the first moments when I arrived in Ploiești. The organizers, volunteers and partners ensured us impeccable working and interaction conditions. When everyone else is doing the rest, it’s easy and nice to be able to just focus on being an artist. I was happy to be part of such a collective, especially since I was able to interact with artists from other cultures and mediums of expression.
Street art
I can say that public space has been an area of interest for me since the beginning of my career. I have several architects in my family who inevitably had an influence on my training. I finished the Faculty of Design in Cluj, and then my master’s degree in Bucharest. Both dissertations had as their subject of study the public space: urban furniture design and the redevelopment of a pedestrian public square with complex functions, respectively a work of destination land art.
This is where I think the switch occurred from approaches with functional valences of design in public space, towards a more conceptual, artistic area, also expressed in public space. In the years that followed, I oriented myself towards the commercial area of design, returning in 2021 to the public space with a seasonal site-specific installation, on Cochilia beach in Tuzla. All this time I was painting and somehow, as a natural extension, the first mural work I made also appeared. I take this opportunity to present it online for the first time.
Your creative process
I believe that each context is and must be treated differently and has its own dynamics. Street art is, from my point of view, at the same time freer as an artistic expression, but also dependent, interconnected and directly conditioned by the environment in which lives. Unlike artworks exhibited in a traditional medium, type white cubestreet art always relates to the specific space in which it exists. The concept, the message, the techniques used, but also the chosen space are present at the basis of the works.
Often, I start from a larger theme, as was the case with the participation in Artown Festival: the anniversary of a century of surrealism, which each artist was invited to interpret in the scenography of Ploiești, an industrial city, under the question What if?
What it’s like to create art in public spaces compared to traditional places
The two environments complement each other or should complement each other very well. The dialogue that is born between the art present in public spaces and the viewers has a particular specificity compared to the one generated in traditional environments. One of the major differences, I think, is the raw, involuntary way of interacting with art in public space, compared to the clear, controlled intention we have when we move to interact with art in museums, galleries, and other media. traditional exposure.
On the street, however, art appears naturally, as an urban element. It hits you and challenges you. When I have the opportunity to create a work in the public space, I think about overcoming these barriers between the viewer and the art. At this aspect of the masses involuntarily exposed to my art, at the same time that I expose my vulnerable, unfiltered work to them. I think about the reactions it can generate, the freedom of expression given by the apparent anonymity under which I exhibit that work, and the opportunity to give people a source of intrigue, curiosity and introspection.
How street art influences public space
Art in public space also has the role of distracting you from the daily routine, making you open your receivers, amplify your senses and absorb new information beyond the functional aspects of urban planning or all the visual pollution we receive from the street media. It challenges you to “stop” yourself in a pleasant way, to reflect for a second on the “here and now”.
The theme I explore in various mediums at this stage of my artistic evolution is dialogue. Often, it is an extremely introverted and intimate dialogue, between inside and outside, between individual and collective feelings. From here, messages become extremely diverse, fragmented and sometimes spontaneously adapted.
Connecting with the public
As I said before, a dialogue is invariably created between the work and the audience. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. In the case of murals, the creation of which takes longer, you have the opportunity to interact with the public in the very moments of creation, often being 100% exposed. We’ve only had positive reactions so far, even from an older audience that we tend to think of as more conservative. Passers-by were happy to see the decayed or vandalized walls disappear and instead have a work of art, a splash of color, something created specifically for that space and most importantly for them, those who pass by that wall every day .
I am very happy when a work, after some time since its creation, even years, returns in related discussions between people whom I have never met before. When people remember seeing my art, when conflicting questions and answers arise, after a period of sedimentation and assimilation of the work. I like to think that there is a moment when a more or less conscious connection is made between the audience, the work, the artist and the context of creation. Then it seems to me that the goal is accomplished.
challenge
I think I’ve been lucky enough to have had some good experiences so far with creating art in the public space. I don’t have many interventions of this kind, and the fact that they were designed in well-organized projects made the restrictions and difficulties almost non-existent for me. I am referring here to the reality that the plan on paper does not always coincide with the one on the ground. Sometimes the weather does not allow the implementation of a project, other times you discover that the space is more difficult to access. However, through collaboration, any challenge can be solved. So far, I haven’t encountered anything significant enough to distract me from the creative process.
The role of street art
Art in general plays several important roles in society. Whatever the purpose, it should be integrated so that it is connected and relevant, through the message conveyed, to the time it exists and to the audience to which it is addressed. Street art, by its very nature, has an inevitable social impact. Urban landscapes, especially domestic ones, are in great need of (quality) contemporary art. I hope that the future will be more and more rich in street art, in the best possible sense. I believe that through collaboration between communities, artists, authorities and the private sector, we can get there.
Starting from the centennial anniversary of Surrealism, the festival launched the question What if? — the overarching theme and challenge for artists. Through my work, Future Pixels / Missing Pixelswe invited the public to enter a surreal dimension of the urban. I used the corners of the buildings, which I perceive as ubiquitous landmarks in the experience of moving around the city. Sometimes they can be disturbingly present—turning points that require decisions, where information is often missing, obstructed both physically and metaphorically by these edges.
By applying mirrors to the corners of buildings, disrupt reality, creating the illusion of some missing pixels in the urban landscape. In this exploration of the city, with an emphasis on the dialogue between human and natural, full and empty, urban and industrial, we have chosen the “perfect” locations for each installation. I wanted the mirrors to reflect a continuation of the natural environment, canceling out the rigidity of the constructions by moving the sky or vegetation into that missing pixel full of life. Other times, I chose to reflect another building, creating a visual dynamic that contrasts with the original rigidity. My intervention prompts the audience on an inner journey, exploring vivid, daydream-like distorted images. We exist in the present and move towards the future, while the mirror reflects the past. These installations simultaneously function as bridges between the three dimensions, reflecting not only the environment, but also our emotions and fleeting states. They blur temporal boundaries, inviting us to reflect on reality and our place in it.
Tips for artists starting out
Rather than advice, I would like to give them a message: be curious, explore the streets, the cities, the communities. Try to understand spatial and temporal dimensions through your own filters, connect and experiment with mediums of expression. The authenticity and impact of the artistic endeavor are born from this free and constructive exploration.
What’s next
Consider it would be Missing Pixels / Future Pixels a successful pilot episode. I want to expand this project to other cities, using it as a personal encouragement and promise. I also want to develop the area of mural painting and installation, and the experience from Artown Festival it’s something I’d like to repeat and explore more deeply. I am interested in engaging with new themes, locations and communities, creating connections that amplify the dialogue between art and society.
Source: www.iqads.ro
