THE KISS Sculpture

Dragoș Neagoe is a special figure in Romanian sculpture.He never left the territory of figurative sculpture, only enriched it, bringing new ways of modeling and casting, in a post-Rodin, post-Giacometti tradition. At the same time, the reference to the studied anatomical forms is in agreement with his way of deciphering the world around him, his own well-defined universe, both physically and spiritually. Physically, Dragoș Neagoe has a superb workshop in a country yard, where he moved with his family when he was thirty-five years old. Basically, this is how the experience of casting directly into pits, specially dug instead of negatives, began. It is important to discover in this artist the way he organized his workshop and his way of working. After moving to one of the neighboring communes of Bucharest, he started working directly with nature, with the earth. He makes his negatives for casting directly into pits. This gesture is half conceptual and half ingenious solution, it speeds up the process and saves materials, thus also enjoying the external intervention of the earth on his works. Beyond the beauty of some portraits-roots-vestiges, working directly in the ground is a novelty in Romanian sculpture. "The sky is the limit" becomes "the earth is the limit". The oversized portrait is the leitmotif of his recent works, and the constant concern for nature and the degradation of matter, the way he observes the effect of climate on nature and living in the proximity of bees have left their mark on these portraits, which are extremely personal and worth studying. The models are often those close to him – family, collectors, friends, people with whom he feels emotionally open. The portrait of expression and its emotional side becomes the central figure of Neagoe's workshop, placing it as a landmark in the conceptual basin dominated by the legacy of Greco-Roman portraiture, passed through the filters of the destruction of contemporary art - post-Arte Povera, post-conceptual, etc. This prefix, post-, can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. But it defines, ranks and underlines, it is the red thread of contemporary art of the 21st century. The spiritual plane that we suspect is present in the artist's creation is an animist type, combined with a strong Christian piety and a clarity given by the tradition of classical sculpture that he still practices, with small differences in approach.