razvan boar Razvan Boar’s paintings are wonderful works of art that range between semi abstraction and near photorealism, his images appropriated, from newspapers and magazines perhaps, who knows? What makes them especially appealing to me is his use of muted colours, his palette of black and white with the odd use of judicious colour. With it Boar is somehow able to create an unsettling and unstable mood in his work that draws you in, wants you to know more about his subjects who seem deeply involved in some activity, a sport or something troubling, intangible. Boar, despite his mature paintings is still young – he’s only 30 – and is seen as one of the most promising talents emerging from a new generation of painters in Romania. It has been said about Boar and his work: 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.