www.solarstains.ca / catalind@solarstains.ca
My artistic formulation has a long exploratory relation with the stained-glass, from which I borrowed the energy of transparency, glare, and colors while giving ways to spatial expansion. I call my creations "convolutes", a term saved from geometry. A convolute of this kind bears shades and perspective, and it is almost kinetical with viewer’s motion and with light’s transition, just like a bas-relief or a sculpture.

Being born at the confluence of the Danube River and the Siret River on the east border of Romania, in an industrial city dominated by a gigantic metallurgic factory, I’ve received a formal mechanical engineering education in Galati, my own hometown. But during my student years I grew interested in stained-glass for its powerful relation to the light. With direct observations and experimentation, and after managing to extrude my own led profile, I eventually became skillful in the led came method. This part of my journey remains today, 25 year later, very important in my approach to the artistic affirmation.

For several years then I continued to improve my technique (painting, etching, engraving etc) in my friend’s low-ceiling cellar turned into studio, located romantically in the old part of the city. In parallel, I’ve completed a three years painting program at the Lower Danube Cultural Centre in Galati, and not much later I moved to Canada.

After my arrival in Calgary, in 2004, I took a full-time position with Tiffany House, a beautiful stained-glass studio and supplies company. There I became versed in the Tiffany method, which I now employ almost exclusively in my work. Having learned the English language well enough, I then welcomed an engineering career for a while, but continuing to take stained-glass repairs and restoration work, on contract, for several years.

In 2015, the opportunity to explore free-hand my life-long impulse towards the arts showed-up. Equipped with total freedom of expression, I launched myself into projects that would test my artistic philosophy. My work turned from bi-dimensional to tri-dimensional and from decorative to conceptual and storytelling. Upon that, in 2018 I became a Board member of the Alberta Society of Artists, and then briefly but with great enthusiasm I served as the Exhibitions Chair. All in all, after participating to some local art shows and online art contests I started to get a sense of the reactions that my work stimulates publicly. In 2019, after much deliberation, my wife and I moved to the Montreal Metropolitan Area in the search for new experiences and broader audience.

The specifics of my work require my public presence to be rather selective. However, I am now seeking gallery representation and collaboration with residential, institutional, and commercial building professionals.

Portfolio: