Each painter has his own story. Hereby I present you a couple of fragments out of my artistic diary. Before painting, I worked in different fields, such as bakery, building, car service, storages of goods, industry, commerce, marketing, desktop publishing, advertising.

In most, I had no qualifications. I have even made some brands, one of which has become quite well known on the market in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. That’s how I can say that life has worn me on many roads … until I came to raise myself a question, and so to end a direction and begin a new one. I sincerely believe that every man is born with a gift and implicitly with a purpose. I realized that life is a gift. Then I said, “Make it matter!”

Life is simple. So, after several searches, I made sense of a simple line. There were also other great artists who reached this dimension – one of them being Picasso (you see a camel or a dog in a line) but … from my point of view … they did not develop a movement, it is probably misplaced in minimalism or ignored (maybe because it’s just a simple line).

I do not paint an open curved line and call it an open curve, it would be banal and bereft of any emotion… it would be minimalism.

The concern for analysis and the deep exploration of the human psyche brought me into

Linism. Linism dares to put it in a psychological analysis. While others have discovered what they can do with some plastic bricks, I have discovered what I can do from a line or more. I basically manage to see and synthesize states and expressions. I paint a curved line (it can even be a straight line) open – relatively simple – that embraces a complex universe.

I’m designing a line that can be interpreted in several ways. So every viewer has the opportunity to see what he wants, but also what I wanted. For example: I paint two straight lines open and perpendicular to each other. Depending on the positioning, they can be viewed and interpreted (by default, in an abstract way) as follows: a cross, a button, propeller, opposite directions, gift box, envelope, spacer, positive, x, multiplier, rocking, target, clover with 4 sheets, and I will call them: Time Compass, Prison Window, Siamese, or The Wheel of the Dead. Is it true that you have thought of this and not a compass of time at the window of a prison, the Siamese, or the wheel of the dead? Want to see what you did not imagine? You can still discover that the work with two overlapping lines is referred to as the following: The roof of the house. Also, depending on some details, I will say: Paun’s Bridge; The invisible circle; Clock with 4 languages (for months, hours, minutes, seconds). Even clockwork may be influenced by my linism. What do I do with this Linism? I follow a universe that is just waiting to become recognized. I ask even the psychologists to follow me. Linism can be developed through study. I am painter Paun, I am self-taught, I present to you the events of my life and how I look at things.

For financial, family reasons, an environment not exactly in paradise, with divorced parents, somehow escaped from the father’s “iron hand”, without careful guidance, and admit … even because of the lack of interest in school, where no one would explain to me the new terms and their logic, I turned myself into a rebellious kid. Then I decided to step into the world of plastic arts as self-taught. At first it can be said that it was like a whim. I was unconscious on which way I was walking. On the way I realized that there were the best of the best … but I did not stop. Then I knew clearly that I want from life. To become a painter who discovers his style. A personal challenge. Let me look for and find the style that defines me, as to analyze its expression and force.

There are 2 characters in art: a. The academic. Where the manner is treated scientifically.

1. Not rigorous. I’m on the b plane and I’m not the only one. I may be too diverse for most patterns. Probably if I were suggested to, I could take my painting to Vermeer, Rembrandt or Rafael, but I like to take it more to me. Here I am … in myself.

Look at my art with my permission. All artists have a start. I personally went downstairs and set out to conquer “Everest” and the whole world. I am on the road. See what the art that I am trying to give you through a personal expression tells you or conveys to you.

Sheet by sheet you’ll find something else. Many do not appreciate it. Many do not appreciate Picasso or Dali today, it’s their right, but they did not even come to know them.

This is my case. Imagine that I intended to face the titans of art. I was born after many other geniuses. I’m trying to overcome a series of barriers. It’s not easy at all.

In the beginning I painted with a cloth. And the first frame of my painting was made out of a case door. The drama of a painter is the lack of inspiration and recognition, so not the lack of money. Fortunately, inspiration is for free. You just have the inspiration to see this.

Recognition occurs over time. An emergence as a wave may disappear just as it has come.

What do I follow through the creation that I assume and sign on? Am I pursuing the emotion I’m sending? Do I do that? The audience should answer.

A complete artist is the one who manages to perform works in the style of the great masters, but through this freedom he can still find and impose his own style. This very freedom has brought to light the diversity of the Paun spirit, focusing on creation in particular, and less on subjective opinions. I am influenced by Brancusi, Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet and many others. One thing I find absolutely normal and natural. We live in the 21st century, we come after centuries of art, it is clear that any approach in today’s creation can look like something of the past. Picasso has created works in several styles, that makes Picasso less ?! They are complicit with subjective approaches. It may seem paradoxical to someone, but at least as far as I am concerned, absolutely any creation is born as it was given to it.

We have to understand that all the environment was made before the appearance of man,and we only look at it, discovering things that we did not see until yesterday, although they were always there. That’s how we manage to position and show them to the whole world. Man is spirit. The rest are “layers” – some beautiful, some less beautiful, a whole philosophy, just like in art.

Through my diversity I looked for my own style. Creation means analysis and diversity.

Do you notice that the landscapes are changing ?! So is in art. Plus, there is a lot of subjectivism. I acknowledge this statement even through the plasticity of Linism. Among Paun’s works there are a number of numbers that indicate how we can be subjective, by far they can be immediately seen as numbers or easily seen in another plane. Linism is full of subjectivism. Like every one of us. And for me Linsim is a kind of science. One by which

I rediscover myself. Passing through multiple landscapes helped me reach Linism. It’s an exercise with your own mind. To look for yourself in creation, not to run after others. There is competition in every field, and pioneering is costly. My competition was first and foremost with myself and I did and continue to do this without being scared of probabilities.

I still want to be like myself, but I can get to be the best of them.

I believe in myself, and that helped me get over any other prejudice. People easily judge other people. Not a few times in a wrong way and defying the quality of the other. In any evolution there are serious fights. The struggle for life, survival and evolution – are just a few examples that we need to be permanently aware of. There are also those fights in which many pretend not to see you. I’m trying to paint everything that happens to me.

There is only one guarantee in creation: the fact that it exists. That should give some confidence and joy. Whoever wants bigger guarantees should pay for the differences he is thinking of. It is a fair reasoning and I will argue in a few words. When I started the creation there was nothing else but an idea that came in response to a question I asked about my existence. What am I looking for in my life? Since then I have been creating creations. I know someone will see my work someday and will want to expose it in his house. I know it’s a matter of time before it goes to the world where it will dress up a beautiful house. One day it will go on sale through a big auction house, too, and anytime it could reach a large museum. It’s unlikely to be understood when I speak like this, but

I do not see it differently. I know my paintings can go far. That’s what pushed me on.

Imagine that the support I painted was white. That was the beginning. Then the sketch appeared. Then I applied the colors, doing a creation. It followed the exhibition of creation, the stages of its communication and its recognition. Where did we begin from? From trust.

The confidence that I can give the world something to enjoy. A value in an emotion. Both.

A strong essence in a universe. Some of my paintings have been purchased and are in private collections in the US and Europe.

I paint and color moods. My moods. Some are extreme, and, fortunately, this is seen in my creation because I have nothing to hide. In my painting I have introduced details that can not be seen if I do not tell them to come in open. I choose to paint my “landscape” to the detriment of the banal one. So the “landscape” belongs to me and reflects my story.

Painting means the interpretation of the artist’s reality. The “Awaiting” series is an example of the reality I live in, but these plans must be revealed by every viewer. These landscapes contain moments in my life. For each painting I think I could write a small book, but I will limit myself to a personal diary. Until then I find it normal for my audience to discover its own meanings. If I were to express all the details, the audience would not be curious anymore, and it could easily pass over me. Even in the simplicity of Linism, I explained details. The viewer has to discover them. I was not born rich, smart, cultivated, smart or beautiful like a star. But I received a gift by birth: life. So my gift is the gift of creation. Nothing belongs to my soul. The soul will be a soul. Painting will be painting.

In every creation that I sign and support, I am an author who tells his feelings and emotions, so I urge you to look at me with much indulgence and appreciate it to a great extent.

The structure or composition of my spirit is a reflection of the natural stimulus I actually lived with, then I settled down and artistically interpreted it.

I do not run to be Brancusi, Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh, Vermeer, Turner, but I do not deny that all these masters have inspired me, especially the first two. Inspiration is a basic component of any creation and must be asserted and assimilated as such. Personally, I do not worry that there is competition between me and other painters. My competition is with the great painters, there is where I place my creation. Every great painter painted the events of his life, doing it in a personal manner, which I do as well. It would be tempting to paint all sorts of ordinary landscapes, but I went through this period with other great artists at the time the camera did not exist. And what use would it be to me to faithfully reproduce a landscape from a corner of the world? I can totally paint anything that binds me to that “landscape” or “portrait”, realizing it as long as it represents me, encapsulates and even conveys a real excitement. Painting, at least from my point of view and extrapolating somehow, is a “reality show” in which the artist lives and is revealed in the sight of all by artistic means, so by the composition of my spirit I do not reinvent the wheel or present the reality of other universe. I characterize as artistic what is predominantly present and in direct correlation with my life, and who understands this statement, something I consider relatively simple, already understands half of the Paun’s work. In one of my landscapes, one that may seem absolutely trivial, there is a whole story that belongs to me. A huge puzzle if we were to analyze the work with the work. Paun art is the thesis of the life of my spirit, and the work itself provides the synthesis of the happenings in my life.

My approaches are not safe recipes, infallible systems, but they are stories and ideas that belong to my spirit. The structure of the painting “The Eye From the Sky” / 2019/01 was influenced by a Romanian young woman whose beauty of spirit I suddenly fell in love with. The sun is her role on me, and the sky that surrounds her is my spirit. Naturally, the imposition of this composition has deep and difficult to distinguish notes without being discovered today in front of you. There are people who bring us light into life through pure encounter and simple dialogue with them. This principle is worth being illustrated and contemplated.

It is beautiful that every story that I have lived and transposed in artistic ways gets caught up in a nail, silently waiting for the viewer. And the viewer likes it so much that it is unique, he can not resist it so he falls in love with it, then he wants it only for the simple company, not only because it is easy to hang, but with the certainty that it does not betray him never. I try not to betray my stories more than I did through their artistic exposition, each story having its intimacy, but I will follow very little explanation on the creations of the spirit. I make this compromise to bring the audience into the spirit of Paun.

Representations encapsulating a process of personal psychological essence. Investigating the reality of a line has prompted me to conduct a broad analysis. It was and is my aesthetic option in which I believe. Also, beyond subjectivism, an indispensable factor, I admit, I think that any psychologist could do a case study through Linism. From my point of view, the line has often gone unnoticed and has been placed somewhere where she expects to be discovered, to live, and to excite herself by being shaped. The line always stood around and at the base of creation, yet it was little brought to light.

The line and the lines are my ties to the story. If we know that 2 points are joined by a line, imagine what a line can contain. It is fundamental and worthy of exploration, and the exploration of the form has a universe that would be ideal to be known. As the art critic

Pavel Susara once said to me: “Your drawings in a single line are very expressive and made with great certainty, but what seems to me most important is not the skill of the hand, but the suppleness of the mind, dynamic and creative thinking, research of form and exploration of the possibility of language.”. If Paun has been unnoticed for a long time just like the line he values, a critic such as Pavel Susara can not pass by unnoticed.

Now the audience is the one who discovers, but we know that audiences sometimes need support through recommendations, like an unwritten custom.

I have been on the road to Linism since 2003. I quickly saw how many development possibilities it offers, but I only approached it with confidence in 2008, until then only analyzing, sketching and designing all sorts of shapes that could embrace the landscapes of the life of my spirit. I am now ready to put into force any line and form it may embrace, with the statement that after so many years I will give the lines a much more appropriate dimension. What you see in this catalogue is just the beginning of Linism, the beginning that provokes me to create as never before. For the lines to come to light, to be valued,

I need three components: exposure, recognition and financial capital.

I further invite you to appreciate and discover every single plan in my creations.

I bow in front of you and thank you,

Stefan Paun