Surrealism AD 2001

Alexandru Nestor

ALEXANDRU NESTOR

Alexandru Nestor plays with palpable things in order to create illusion. His works are the result of conspicuous combinations of heterogeneous objects. In his way, Nestor is a preposterous collector of curios. His studio looks like a cabinet of a Renaissance prince with scientific propensities. Shells, rocks and gems, bottles of every kind, old maps end books, coins, herbarium, clockworks, feathers end stuffed birds are collectible items which cover in piles the floor and every corner of the room. From this heap of objects the artist selects the elements for his unorthodox works. Nestor has a juvenile appetite for games: his works are puzzle-like compositions.
 
Using cobbler's old hoot patterns, thousand of little clock wheels, bells, bulbs, switches and every conceivable outdated, discarded objects Nestor re-creates a world, a world of his own. For Nestor is a dreamer end a master of illusion as well.
 
The tiny objects from which he combines his works arc not junks as those used by the Danish artists Henry Heerup and William Freddie in mid 1930s. Instead they are leftovers from various old workshops. Skilled in many fields Nestor is, in the meantime, cobbler, joiner, plumber, blacksmith, watchmaker and jeweler for his assemblages. His works ore mainly wooden boxes, cases, caskets and trunks of various size end shape. Some of them are anthropomorphic figures sustained on wooden hoot patterns. The hatted heeds are actually lighted bulbs with their shades.
 
Thus the assemblage figures become functional also. Clocks are incorporated in others. Some resemble scientific instruments with plenty of dials and scales, often electrically activated. Still others are mocking precious pieces of furniture. In every shelf or every drawer there is a surprise: a shell, a butterfly, a stone, a leaf, a root, o feather, a nickel, a stamp, a toy figure or a photograph.

  As a genuine collector Nestor labeled all these exhibits, sometimes in Latin or German, using scientific terms.Nestor has also in mind the pictorial side of his works. The brass drawers' handles and hinges are glittering on the polished mahogany. Sometimes dried leafs are pasted on the doors of his tiny sideboards. Their natural shades rendered vividness to the whole. Thus the artist succeeds to bridge the elusive gap between life and art. Other surfaces are covered with stamps and scraps from old newspapers and commercials. History and culture resound in these collage pictures.

 Nestor uses sometimes paint for his sophisticated works. Within his subdued, refined palette, which frequently was related to his gold end silvers of precious metals, he would put forth either matte or brilliant examples of these colors, along with purple, pink and red.

 Humor plays a great part in Nestor's art. The idea of combining such heterogeneous items in order to obtain a case or an assemblage figure is humorous in itself. Besides, titles are ironically chosen too: The Flossy Chinese, The Tired Maid, The Sensible Triangle, Three-tongues Warrior, and A Butterfly Infatuated with Armstrong.

 Recently Nestor was inspired by old German legends and Richard Wagner's operas. Consequently ho illustrated, in his original way The Rhinegold. The juxtaposition of dials end scales are meant to reveal King Nibelung's coat of mail. The arched top of a sideboard magnificently suggests Hagen's befeathered helmet. Darker shades are intended to stress the gloomy nature of this character.

 With wide cultural propensities Alexandru Nestor is able to portray a mythic past and to destroy the cliché of contemporary life using its own weapons.

Adrian Silvan Ionescu

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