Stefan Triffa – Recent paintings
Modern art lovers, whose expectation is modernistic as well, seem puzzled by the type of art produced by the younger generation. What happened to beauty, harmony, why do artists choose the role of entertainers or activists for the civil society? At first, it seems that we have a solid modernist tradition in art, and that is only natural that the younger generation, would take a reactionary position towards it. A similar situation occurred at the beginning of the ‘60s, at the dawn of pop art.
Moreover, we can safely conclude that a great segment of the modernist experience has never been assimilated in this country, namely American abstraction in painting with all its main branches: field, color field, action painting, etc. A fully aesthetic, gestural painting is indeed poorly represented in our country. And it is not hard to understand why. In order to have genuine representations in abstract painting, a cultural context accommodated with the idea is needed. A Romanian artist will remain a sort of icon painter.
Ştefan Triffa studied in New York with major figures in the history of American modern painting, such as Theodoros Stamos, and Pousette-Dart. This school operates under a few basic credos such as sincerity-abstraction-aestheticism.
The abstract painting practiced by Stefan Triffa, does not seem to be just a generic experience from the part of a painter, but rather a personal one, carefully built, day after day. I always envied people who are capable of simplifying their lives in order to achieve their goals, and succeed in concentrating all their efforts into their beliefs. Stefan Triffa is one of these individuals. His days begin with the anticipation of painting later on that day. From the brief and rather late breakfast, to even later lunch, followed by the glass of wine, and coffee, everything seems to fit into an existentialist strategy in order to achieve a state of readiness to paint. And all this comes through in the paintings. Swirls, marks, produced using control against chance, executed with enthusiasm, by a mature hand. (Dan Popescu)
