Artist Spotlight: An Interview with Collage Artist George Teseleanu

Collage artist George Teseleanu was born and still resides in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania. We had the chance to interview him about his work and his motivations for his surrealistic collage creations such as the one below…

Untitled

• What were your inspirations and influences growing up?

I’ve grown up surrounded by movies and novels. I was usually touched by horror and science-fiction ones and I still am. These genders create unusual worlds and creatures that inhabit them, so it’s a good place to be influenced by.

• When did you start collaging?

I started to create collages in the year 2008. It all started as game, an experiment, but I soon realized that through collages I can express myself. In the past I experimented with abstract drawing, digital landscaping and photography, but none really kept my interest. Collage instead did, mostly because is an easy and strange way to create. You can create something from scattered bits and part.

• Is your art how you make a living or do you have a ‘day’ job?

I do my art as a hobby. In real life, I’m a student at the Faculty of Mathematics, and I’m studying for my master’s degree.

• You state you love Dali. Are there any other artists you appreciate and are influenced by?

I’m influenced by many artists, but I try to keep an original part. From the consecrated ones, except Salvador Dali,  I would say Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Henri Rousseau and John Heartfield. From the contemporary one, I would say Hector Pineda, Gromyko Semper, Bernd Dreilich and Bernard Dumaine.

• Do you work in silence?

I usually work at home. I prefer the comfort of my own room, but I can’t say that I work in silence. Usually the tv is working or the radio. I can’t concentrate in total silence, I need some sort of noise to focus.

• Where do you gain your inspiration from to produce such intriguing pieces?

My inspiration comes from many different places. It can come from a novel, for example, or simply a feeling, or maybe a word. There is no recipe for inspiration. I have days when I struggle all day to create something, and I’m not happy with the outcome, and the next day I create something very fast.  So I have to say that my inspiration comes from life and fiction, or more simply from experiences.

• How would you describe your artwork, besides surreal?

I would describe it as simple. I try to keep everything simple, so the viewer can see the essence of the artwork. I think that if something is to complicated the viewer will be distracted and he will miss the essence.

• Have you ever exhibited your work?

I started to exhibit some of my artworks recently. The first artwork I exhibited was a collaboration with other four artists, and the one who gathered us made us a surprise and entered the piece in contest exhibition. We didn’t won, but I was very excited to be in an exhibition.

• In your collages The Apotheosis of Time, Exploring The Ambition Of and Meditation…the figures shown are faceless. This seems to be a reoccurring theme in your work. Can you explain why?

The Apotheosis of Time

Exploring the Ambition Of…

Meditation

I want people to find themselves in the character that I created or in the idea that I try to expose, not in the models that I use. That is the main motif for the masks or for the lack of human heads in my works. Another motif is that I what to keep the models private.

• In your many of your collages there is also a sense of desolation, confinement and anguish…is this just my observation, or does this stand true?

That is true. I think that to create something interesting, you have to draw your inspiration from the dark parts of humanity or the grotesque one. These are the parts where you find the really interesting thinks. For example, you can easyly portrait solitude and make people connect with that feeling. People, I included, are generaly attracted to the grotesque, to the unusual etc.

• However in Smoking The Music Pipe, this piece is quite whimsical, it brings to mind the show Monty Python. Can you tell us how you came to create this collage and the meaning behind it?

Smoking the Music Pipe

This piece is a collaboration with Bernd Dreilich. It was an exquisite corpse, so we didn’t know know the outcome, until we both finished our part. I did the right part, and I have only sent the end of the pipe, to Bernd. After he finished the left side, we joined both parts and here is the outcome.

As far as my part, I wanted to create something using a pipe. So the obvious idea was to make something to come out of it. I choosed the pick up disks because they resemble smoke circles. The human on top, was simple, mostly because you listen to music using your ears, so that is why he has an ear on his head.

• Let’s just say you could not be creative through the medium of collage…what other medium would you choose?

I would have to choose writing. If  I can’t create my characters using visual aid, at least I can describe them and let people visualize them. I wanted to write for a long time, but I haven’t had the courage, the time, but who knows, maybe when I’m a little older I’ll try it.

• Out of all the collages you have made which is your favorite and why?

Torso No. 7

I’ll have to say Torso No. 7. The reason is simple. This is the world we live in, without media I wouldn’t be able to create collages.

• Do you have a website (besides deviantART) that people can follow you or see your work?

While most of my works are on deviant ART, you can see some of my artworks is http://visionaryartgallery.weebly.com/george-teseleanu.html#1

Deductions of Doublethink

Holding the Key to My Heart

Human Creation

The Ecstacy of St. Hypnosia

Stitching Lenin

Trapped in My World

See all of George Teseleanu’s collage works on his deviantART.