The neck camera, the pipe, the hat and the beard are some of the elements that describe the image of the artist and teacher Dorel Găină, a character who cannot go unnoticed in the Cluj landscape. This is because behind the white beard, the artist hides, in fact, a young soul, who breathes a bohemian and student air, being always ready to share smiles, emotions and a sincere love for the visual arts.
Atypical in a world so hectic and so noisy, Dorel Găină is the artist who stops time in place and, every time he does so, he saves the moment on film. He talks feverishly, modestly and very gently about himself and photography, he does not like to talk at all about his great passion as an expert artist, but only as an artist-cavalier guided by a mixture of feelings. You can feel his passion in the accent that falls like a light on the words and in the fact that when he speaks, he describes everything so visually that you don't need to close your eyes to see the scenes he's talking about.
an interview by Anamaria Maxim
1. Who is Dorel Găină from an inside perspective?
It is very difficult for me to describe myself... There are too many overlapping identities that, when they help each other, when they argue and so on, I could say that it is a state of mind, simply.
2. What are the essential elements that define a "good photograph"?
First of all, good photography is everything that is photographed, starting from the photo taken with the phone and up to the great photographic works, because the moment someone sees something, which arouses an emotion, and takes a photo, it means that what he saw is important and it means that the photo is good. Of course, having said this, I can talk about the mastery of photography, within which comparisons and distinctions can be made.
To the question "what creates a good photographic mood", the factual answer is the meeting between a real mood, which can spark a story, and an emotional author, who chooses to turn into a storyteller, more or less good.
3. It is certainly important that there is a connection between the two, but from your point of view is a good image defined by its technical quality or by the message it conveys?
It's like a dance. The link between the technical performance of the recording and the reproduction of the real through photography is determined, first of all, by the metaphysical performance of the photographer, by his self-reflexivity, his thinking and reporting closer or further away from the myth, the symbol or the trends that they are carried by the social-cultural environment.
4. Can we talk about a path of photography from passion to lifestyle?
Yes, we can talk about this, but also about the opposite way. For me, photography became a passion due to the joy of drawing and due to the fact that in 1970, in Oradea, the first dog exhibition in Romania took place, in which I participated not with a dog, because I didn't have one, but with two cameras photos won at two comics contests.
5. After so much experience in visual art, what do you want most from what you still do and have been doing all this time?
An artist never finishes his project, often he doesn't even know what project he has to do. My nostalgia is related to the fact that I don't have enough time for painting and image modeling in laboratories.
6. I've been drawing lines between yesterday's artists and today's artists for a long time. Before, artists trained in a very idealistic way. For example, we know the famous story of Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who were friends, shared art, had conflicts and so on. Yesterday's artists spent a lot of time in the creative workshops, where they studied, had a very vast culture, led a life that did not conform to social conventions and could not integrate into social life. Again, if we look at today's artists, we don't know who to trust. Considering that today's artists are formed very differently, who is the artist we should believe in?
First of all, what we call romanticism and idealism of ancient artists is the imagination and reverie we have about them, conveniently recorded, as a rule, by biographers. It is not so. The artist of yesterday and today is the same, he is that idealist and dreamer as always, naive and candid, who manages to remain a child, even if he doesn't want to and who, most of the time, is treated like a child tender or pampered by society.
7. What does a normal day in the life of Dorel Găină look like?
A normal day in the life of Dorel Găină looks very abnormal. It starts by going to bed between 2 and 5 in the morning, and I realize that I go to bed at the moment when I have to get up, to go to the University. A very hard awakening follows, very student-like, even if I am the age I am. Then there is a rather unconventional meeting with the students, which appears as a consequence of the fact that I graduated in design, and design thinking is more different from conventional thinking.
Later, I rush home but, on the way, there are several stops at shops, or at newsrooms, or at exhibitions, of course, with the device hanging around my neck and triggering as many times as possible, until I realize that the battery is dead and that I forgot to upload it.
Obviously, every day there is a meeting with my two dogs and those programs that involve friendship bonds, as long as I can dedicate to them, because the speed of movement, since I have a cane in my right hand as my partner, has decreased, because the cane he can't move as fast as me and I have to take care of him, explains the artist with amusement.
I spend the evening, as a rule, sitting in front of the laptop, with the TV in the background, next to a coffee and a "comfort" pipe, and the moment the light can be turned on in the house, I switch to contemplation, reading, when downloading the images taken during the day and when working on various projects, either ongoing or future.
8. You are very active, in conclusion.
They say I'm very active, my answer is desperately a "no" with a lot of "uuu"s and exclamation marks at the end, because I'm not as active as I'd like and as I could be.
9. About coffee
When I was a child I did not understand what pleasure my parents found in that black and so bitter drink. In college, I asked myself the same question regarding the morning habit of my colleagues, for the sake of which I started drinking the first coffees, from here, little by little, the joy and passion for coffee also appeared.
I love to feel the aroma of coffee in the morning, that's why I stick to coffee from morning to evening. I have to admit that, unfortunately, I drink coffee with sugar, being aware that only without it, coffee reveals its secrets and spells. I really admire the Italian espresso style coffee pot, but I also love a great cup of coffee to keep you going while you work.
The atmosphere that is created around some cups of coffee predisposes you to open up, not to be tense and reaches those discussions, which in an initial context would perhaps never have taken place, the best example in this sense it is the coffees with my students.
"The best coffee"?
I could not detach it from those thousands of good coffees drunk together with the angels of creation, with my loves, with my friends, drunk in formidable places, whether it is Venice, Cluj, the Negreni Fair, a hill of where, just a few days ago, I watched a formidable sunrise.
About Anamaria: Her first love was music, with which she still hopes to return to the original relationship, followed by photography and then writing, which has always existed, about experiences, people and life, from a philosophical perspective. He calls all these "passions put in a drawer". She is fascinated by clothes and ancestral stories, the contrast between shadows and lights, nature and visual arts and their authors. At the same time, Anamaria is interested in politics, which is why she occasionally makes political analyzes on Instastory.