The Unseen Side of the Moon 

"The Unseen Side of the Moon" was created by Vasile Dobrian in 1988, using oil on canvas. With its bold colours and geometric forms, it has a visual directness. But look closer, and you see that the paint is applied with real deliberation. The hand of the artist is everywhere present, and no attempt has been made to conceal this. The colours are very important to the success of the image, the work's material influences its appearance, considering its inherent qualities of substance, texture, weight, colour and form. It's easy to forget that a painting, just like a ceramic pot, or a woven textile, is the result of skillful construction. The artist must patiently build an image, layer upon layer. Paying attention to these basic facts of materials and making allows us to appreciate the amount of labor involved, and to escape the limiting idea that paintings are only about what they represent, and that painting is also something made and not only an image.