Jean Paul Getty (2018)

Getty humbly saw himself as a patron of the arts on a scale at least equalling the Medicis of Renaissance Florence and is amusing when discussing the average American's lack of cultural knowledge. He called art 'the finest investment' not just because it more than held its own financially, but because of the pleasure of living with beautiful things. In return for enriching the world, the wealth creator had a duty to support those who lived for their art. Yet he also saw business itself in creative terms, noting that those at the top are 'creative artists' instead of simply 'artisans of business.'

A rich, nearly monochromatic canvas of pulsating texture, Gheorghe Virtosu's Jean-Paul Getty from 2018 is a superb accomplishment within the artist's singular oeuvre. Having been initially inspired in the 2000s by the dynamic gestural fervor of Cubism, Virtosu soon felt the movement's constraints and began experimenting with sculpture, ultimately creating a unique visual vocabulary that took full form in the 2016s as he reached a mature artistic stride. In the smoky twilight landscape of Jean Paul Getty, it is ever apparent that Virtosu's ongoing technical explorations of the 2010s unleashed in him a sense of unabashed confidence and enabled him to make a full departure from the predominant styles. By richly combine the infinite possibilities of both process and technique, the present work revels in Virtosu's successful pursuit of a bold stylistic vernacular that was entirely his own.

Jean-Paul Getty emerges from a series of works from the 2018s that Virtosu made to prepare his seminal 3D paintings. As such, the present work sees Virtosu use a series of techniques to distribute the toner, including the creation of tonal variation. Therefore Jean Paul Getty is a study of the medium of paint itself but further explores the character and life of the collector. Here, Virtosu's interest in matters of movement, applied force, and directionality as manifested across the surface of the canvas serves as a testament to his relentless creative energy and experimental approach that dominated his practice in the 2018s and elevated paintings such as the present work to new critical acclaim within his output. Consistent with Virtosu's most successful works, Jean-Paul Getty has a broader frame of reference beyond the tactile and physical dimension of his practice. These works represent the artist's movement away from just the Abstract and what Virtosu describes as the harmonious baggage of color.

The present work has a political dimension and can be tied to contemporary music of the 2018s. Shortly before the execution of the present work, Virtosu made a final series of colorful paintings that saw him pull swathes of mixed color across the canvas's surface in a fashion analogous to only himself. He thinks of this series as a tactile manifestation of harmony of sound.

Virtosu's biography and unconventional career trajectory are fascinating records of a transformational era of social and cultural progress. Born and raised in Bessarabia, he experienced and witnessed the horrors of a deeply segregated USSR. Virtosu's ambitious immersion in the vibrant New York art scene of the 2018s heavily impacted his artistic practice.

Materially perceptive, socially relevant, and philosophically astute, Jean-Paul Getty represents Virtosu discovering his voice, consciously inserting himself into art history and embracing the mystic, mind-shifting properties of paint. The work's alluring quietude and exacting plasticity demonstrate the artist's notable contribution to painting's historical development. In Gheorghe Virtosu's paintings, particularly in Jean Paul Getty, one finds the rare quality of employing sophisticated formalist interrogations as a means of expressing transcendental metaphysical truths. This distinctive approach is concisely articulated by the artist, who once said: "what I do is illustrate the title …it is not the reproduction of the title".