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"Rauschenberg and the American school gave me the understanding that there was another way to work. I had already started to do collages when I showed with Richard Demarco in Edinburgh in 1969. " Ion Bitzan In an interview with Sean McCrum

Pyramids, 1979 20 X 40 X 80 cm. Mixed media (China ink on paper collage, wood, leather)

Sigilomania, 1997 60 X 25 X 200 cm. Wood with inscriptions

Bitzan expands the spaces of refuge provided by books into temporal experiences of optical contemplation. Kristine Stiles Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Furry Dinner, 1997 (An hommage to the Surrealist art classic: Meret Openheim's fur-lined tea cup.) 100 X 50 X 50cm. Mixed media

In the same way as other painters who studied in Romania, Ion Bitzan was trained academically. His themes therefore included the nude, portraits and the still life. He began his professional career with a lengthy phase as a realist - socialist painter. In that context, working from nature seemed to be the only possible means of self-expression. However, he was subsequently influenced by contemporary Italian work, particularly by Renato Gottoso, although he later abandoned this. "It's difficult to be exact about who influenced me, but there were a lot of different people. When I first exhibited abroad, in the 1964 Venice Biennale, there was the American school, particularly Robert Rauschenberg, and some Japanese work, particularly Tatsumi Kudo." Ion Bitzan In an interview with Sean McCrum

Nude in the Box, 1979  40 X 20 X 8cm. Object box - mixed media

Art-objects 1997 (?)

Concerned primarily with survival through time, Bitzan avoids the blunt representation of human personality, preferring to evoke our presence through the traces and marks we leave behind us. But his materials - largely leather and paper - presume organic and intelligent life, and his works affirm the resilience of humanity against the odds of death and decay. It is metaphysical as well as political art. Overall it can be said that his distinctive use of script and the way in which he combines his own meticulously crafted objects with found objects make Bitzan the most inventive and intellectually demanding of contemporary Romanian artists. Dragos Gheorghiu Dragos Gheorghiu is a regular contributor to the Romanian Journal ARTA