WIN Gallery:  The artist facing a blank canvas may feel discouraged or fearful. What inner ritual is activated and what do you feel when you stand in front of the white canvas?  

Relu Bițulescu: Before having this dialogue with the blank canvas, a spark appears somewhere in the subconscious, a mist that slowly begins to develop, like a snowball. It grows, materializes, personalizes itself. You try to make sense of it and only then do you take a long and piercing look at the blank canvas. And I think that, in fact, is where our struggle, as artists, lies over time. It's not just a dialogue between the blank canvas and the artist, it's a struggle. We even have examples in art history where the canvases remained almost empty... Just a dot, a line, a comma, that's all the artist thought should appear on that canvas. In my case, the starting point is not just the canvas, I also start from the frames, which inspire me a lot. They have to be part of the work, you can't separate them; frames are not just an accessory to an artwork. Of course, that's just my point of view … others may consider that frames are not so important. Lately, there has been a tendency to present artworks without frames, as messy and even as ugly as possible. The metallic nails are sticking out, the works seem unfinished... This aspect isn`t compatible with my work, on the contrary, it gives me a feeling of negligence and fear, and I think, "How can I present myself with a work like this?" So, I start with the frame, then the idea develops and takes a different direction. 

Marijana Bițulescu: The white canvas inhibits me, so I always start by coloring it, creating a structure for the canvas, and then it can inspire me, even if I already have a - somewhat outlined - composition in mind. I've always liked to leave it to chance, but not the kind you can't control, the kind you can intuitively sense. Of course, the themes and subjects have always been sketched out and thought about, I have them in my mind, but I start by coloring the canvas to give myself a boost of courage.  

WIN Gallery: How does a timeless character with a wise soul come into being, from the perspective of the artist Relu Bițulescu? 

R.B.: It's difficult... I am familiar with timeless characters, I love tackling this theme, taking refuge in the past, and I have a few favorite themes. Perhaps it is also a form of refusal to collaborate with what is currently being proposed. It is my form of protest, after all. I feel very comfortable finding myself in the past, but also approaching the characters with the means I have now, with my current understanding. 

Returning to this story of "ugliness in art," there are many situations in which there is a risk of starting something beautiful and failing, of making it ridiculous, of not achieving what you set out to do. Having some connection with music, I know that you can't go in front of the audience to apologize or blame the instruments, or your state of mind, when you fail to perform to your true potential or to the audience's expectations. Nor can you appear on stage in front of the audience to tell them, "I'm not feeling very well tonight, so don't expect much, the instrument is squeaking, it won't be quite what you expect from me tonight." You simply can't do that! The same goes for visual artists: if you leave a work at a stage you don't like, the audience's perception of you, the author of the work, will be altered. Even our self-censorship misses some unresolved, unfinished threads.

WIN Gallery: Do you have any beautiful, but unloved artworks? Which ones exceeded your expectations but also left you feeling dissatisfied? ​

M.B.: When you finish a piece, you often have doubts. Over time, you come to think that maybe you needed to add more… or less. I don't think I'm ever really satisfied. I have artworks that I love (I love them all, in all truthfulness!), but I would have liked more from myself, more for them. That's how I feel every time - a subtle dissatisfaction, a constant search. Every artist who works intensely has this feeling, as if you're never really satisfied. 

R.B.: These are compelling themes in art, and yet you can't ignore them. Even good things, not just the bad things, come with migration... Or at least the good things are more important than the bad ones. [Speaking of migration and the artist's original art], I think it's already risky to say that someone has discovered something, because history proves to us, at every moment in time, that someone else was there before, someone else was there, and [...] has already traveled that path and interpreted what you thought you had discovered. Somehow, I suspect Da Vinci had extraterrestrial connections, because he couldn't have thought of all of that with his 15th-century mind... Everything that has been done since then has actually stemmed from his ideas, like battle machines, helicopters...

WIN Gallery: What mechanism of limitation or self-restraint do you use to finish a piece? When do you know that a piece is ready?  ​

R.B.: First and foremost, this is every artist's self-censorship. And if you don't self-censor, there is a very high risk of crossing the "border," so to speak, of proposing something that is not, in the end, representative of what you wanted. And then, as an artist, you get comfortable with the idea that a piece is never finished. Even years later, there is still room for something to be completed, added. So, you leave it as it is, revisit the theme later, and come up with improvements and additions. You feel that you haven't said enough in a piece or set of pieces of art, and then you revisit the idea. 

M.J.: We go back to themes that we have revisited, perhaps out of a feeling that we haven't said enough, that we didn't approach them initially as we would have liked.

WIN Gallery: While working on a painting, have you ever questioned your understanding of the subject? 

R.B.: Of course... Many times! It often overwhelms you; you have to start over, you have to cut it off, start another one, work on that one, then come back. For example, I like to start several [paintings] and work on several different themes at the same time.