Nucu Stan
Romanian, born 1955
Although the materials he uses are common, Nucu is specific about their types and also their meanings. Oat or rye straw is softer and more golden than wheat; black Romanian cotton is preferable because it has just the right amount of shine and strength. The use of straw with its lustrous golden quality on a solid black background is intended to convey the solemnity of religious mystery. Nucu settled in Connecticut in 1990 after receiving permanent political asylum in the United States. His work has been exhibited and collected by galleries and churches in the Netherlands, the Washington, DC area, and in Connecticut where the Mayor’s office, Romanian churches, and the Connecticut Historical Society hold several of his straw pictures in their collections.
Tiny pieces of flattened straw glued onto a black cotton background - this Eastern European folk art technique has taken on a strong religious and ethnic significance for Nucu Stan, a Romanian political emigré living in Hartford. A parallel can be drawn between historical circumstances in his native Transylvania, overrun by successive groups conquering and changing the cultural patterns of indigenous people there, and Nucu's own struggle to maintain a sense of identity in his new country.
The political situation in Romania in 1987 was very oppressive under the Ceaucescu government. Nucu tried to leave but was turned back at the Yugoslav border, then thrown in jail for nine months. "You become a political prisoner with a dossier...the police check you everywhere...I was lucky, many died." After going to jail twice more, he escaped by swimming two and a half hours across the Danube River to Serbia. After some months in Italy, he moved to the Netherlands where his straw pictures became very popular. He emigrated to America in 1990, settling in Hartford where there is a small community of Romanians.
Although a tradition of straw pictures exists in Romania, Nucu has refined the painstaking process according to his own design. He was introduced to straw work in school when his sister persuaded him to do a picture for her art class. He had a good design sense even then, and with only basic instruction in the technique, Nucu produced excellent work and was encouraged by teachers. Still, he could only find work in construction in Romania, and did not concentrate on his pictures until he found enthusiasm - and a market - for them in the Netherlands.
The quintessentially Romanian quality of Nucu's work lies in its subjects - biblical stories, churches, and village scenes. "My inspiration is coming from old, old tradition which still remains today and is very popular wherever you go." A deeply religious man, Nucu relates Transylvanian history as if it were yesterday. His pictures reflect the importance of the church as the cultural and spiritual center for the community for thousands of years, never eclipsed by invaders or changes in dogma. "The church was sometimes just little pictures or small building. When barbarians came, people took the Bible, they took pictures, they took the Christian flag, what for them was holy. Not important how the church looks on the outside." Nucu describes the main religion in Transylvania as Greek Catholic; the Austro-Hungarian rulers changed from Eastern Orthodoxy in the 17th century. "But they still keep it the Byzantine way to make the church, the altar, the ritual, everything - they just recognize the Pope." Nucu's design sense also retains a strong Orthodox influence. "You see it in Byzantine pictures - the line is very important for ritual...they got a very specific line. I try to respect this line."
"I want to put some Romanian folk art in...I want some Orthodox way too...to keep it also old-fashioned. Old-fashioned is part of our life, our education...but we can adapt to make it in a new way like the straw - because no one did straw pictures in the church before. But I have a feeling, now I can design all the churches just about straw pictures. And I am sure is going to look like gold...it's going to be like gold for a long long time, and it's going to be art for a long long time."
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