Emerging contemporary artists - selected so you don't have to...

Razvan Boar

Practice: painting

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Superlative painting skills - borne of the same communist-era emphasis on traditional techniques that propelled Germany's Leipzig School to fame - are the hallmark of several recently acclaimed Romanian painters. Razvan Boar seems set to become another.

Aside from the obvious virtuosity of his work, Boar's practice is distinguished by various distancing devices, most of them typical of recent Romanian painting, and each seeking to disrupt the anticipation of narrative raised by keenly observed figuration.

Imagery appears appropriated or archival, transcribed in grisaille from photographic documentation of unclear origin. Areas of closely worked paint contend with fragmented planes or far looser sketching. Compositions within compositions refute linear logic; and few of Boar's subjects seem to confront the viewer, lost instead within the hermeticism of situations which remain troublingly enigmatic.