Two Romanian iconographers find that each time they come to Dublin they meet more people wanting to learn the art, writes Anne Dempsey.
Iconographers Mihai Cucu and Zsuzsanna Mara flew to Dublin from Romania on Wednesday of last week, spent Saturday mounting an exhibition of their work in St Bartholomew's Church of Ireland, Dublin 4, supervised its opening on Sunday, dismantled it on Monday and flew out on Tuesday, well pleased with their trip.
"Each time we show here there is growing interest, growing numbers. We may get more commissions and each time we get people wanting to come on a workshop," says Cucu.
These days, showing their work also provides an opportunity to talk about the restoration and conservation service they will set up in Dublin this coming year. Their icons range in price from €300-€400 up to €1,500, depending on size, with restoration prices being job-specific.
Both aged 28, they met at university in Bucharest while studying the history and technique of iconography. He later fell into the faculty's art restoration programme almost by accident, and liked it. She, in contrast, had no doubts about her future career.
"At 15 on a school trip to Hungary, I saw a ceramicist at work and knew immediately art restoration was what I wanted to do. My parents are both teachers and they originally wanted something more secure for me, but as I stuck to my resolve, they realised how serious I was, and gave in."
TODAY CUCU'S icons are painted on wood, while Mara works on glass. "An icon is a sacred image, not a religious picture. An icon is deeper, an integral part of Greek Orthodox liturgy. It's like a portal, a door you enter to connect with the liturgy. It's scripture in images," says Cucu.
"An icon uses images to describe beliefs. Traditionally, it was like the Bible in pictures for people who could not read," agrees Mara.
St Luke, painter as well as scholar, is credited with painting an early icon - of Madonna and Child, unsurprisingly - and apparently creating more than 300 icons in his lifetime.
After college, Cucu and Mara began a series of restoration interventions in Romania. "There is lots of work - our churches are falling down - but little money for it," says Cucu ruefully.
While on a ceramics scholarship in Cornwall in 2000, he visited a Romanian friend who lives in Ireland and sings in the Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin choir. It was to be the first of many visits, resulting in exhibitions in a number of Irish locations, thanks to Irish support, which led to requests for iconography workshops. These are week-long, intensive and very hands on, with each participant getting to produce their own icon by course end.
"We explain at each stage what we do and why. For example, we could use ochre yellow, but we choose gold leaf because it sends you there," he points heavenward. "Christ is both human and divine, so in depicting Him, we choose red for blood, emotion, living person, and blue for the intense profundity of divinity. We don't give long lectures, we have people experience it as they go along."
Zsuzsanna gives a short illustrated talk setting figures in their cultural context. "One woman wanted to paint a figure with blue eyes, but we explained that, from that part of the world, eyes would have been brown. We must remain faithful," she says.
They earn their living through restoration and workshops, while finding time to create new work. "While iconography is prescribed in the way you do it, there is still a freedom, there will be a lot of you in everything you produce and, of course, colour is a beautiful and personal thing," he says.
DIVIDING THEIR TIME between Ireland and Romania, they have come to love their adopted country, while on a sharp learning curve. "We spent two months giving several workshops and a course on iconography on Inis Oirr, ending with an exhibition. We thought 'slán' meant 'hello', and used to go into the grocery shop saying slán, and wonder why people stared," says Mara.
Earlier this year they took part in an Artist in Residence Programme funded by Westmeath County Council Arts Office. In one project, "Incarnating the Sacred", they created two modern statues of St Frances and St Clare, constructed from steel, metal and natural materials. The statues now stand in the grounds of the Franciscan Friary in Multyfarnham. "Creating such different work was wonderful," says Cucu.
They also restore icons, statues, friezes, frescoes and murals, and will work on non-sacred art as well as ecclesiastical pieces. Restoration begins with close examination of the piece, writing and recording everything including any chromatic interpretation.
This is followed by consolidation as necessary to halt any further degeneration. Research is usually necessary to site the piece in its place and time before choosing appropriate chemical cleaners, paints and decorative style. Small missing pieces can be remodelled and decorated to fit. It is painstaking work.
"I'm not patient in life, but patient in work," says Mara.
"I'm impatient in queues, I won't wait, I'll walk away," says Cucu. "But I'm patient in iconography and restoration. I usually work at night, it's quiet, there is a deep silence, it's what I want to do."
They notice a growing Irish interest in icons. "Icons retain some of the mystery the Catholic Church may have lost," says Cucu. "Pope John Paul talked about more co-operation between the Catholic and Orthodox church which is leading to reconciliation between the churches."
At a time when some Catholics have become disillusioned because of recent scandals, they still have the need for the spiritual, which a study of icons offers. "Icons are initially not accessible, but if you stay and gaze into them, you gradually begin to grow in understanding and awareness. Icons change you," he says. "They have changed us - for the better."
