Ionel Talpazan
Ionel Talpazan, born in Romania but lived his entire adult life in New York, is convinced that his drawings and sculptures of flying saucers contain secret informations about the UFO propulsion systems that might be of interest to NASA.
What is certain, is that his admirable colorful creations, which together form a veritable intergalactic station, transport us into a unique universe, that of this man who, as a child, saw an “extraterrestrial” blue light, the source of his work.
His drawings are already part of collections such as those of the Musée national d’Art moderne (Pompidou), the Gregg Museum of Art & Design, the American Folk Art Museum, the American Visionary Art Museum, and the LAM.
Ionel had a turbulent childhood: born in 1955 near Bucharest (Romania), he lost his twin brother shortly after their birth. His parents, at odds with each other, left him with his grandfather before he was sent, at the age of six, to a foster family whose mother turned out to be a violent alcoholic. At the age of eight, while hiding in the bushes after escaping from the house, he saw the strange blue light moving without a sound: four years later, he drew his first UFO.
As an adult, he fled his country by swimming across the Danube; recognized as a political refugee, he established himself in New York. From then on, Ionel dedicated himself to his creation, his apartment barely large enough to store his impressive production.
His work, shown in multiple galleries in the United States and at the exhibition Chalet Society - The Museum of Everything, boulevard Raspail in Paris in 2012-2013, is part of several major collections of art brut.
Preface : Philippe Baudouin
Foreword : Christian Berst.
Catalog published to mark the exhibition Beyond : on the edge of the visible and the invisible, from March 6th to April 13th, 2019.
