User:Diordache01/sandbox

Ion Vincent Danu, Canadian viasual artist of Romanian descent. Born in Sibiu, Transylvania, the 8th of February 1956 (7th of February after other sources). At 13-14, he discovered Vincent Van Gogh's Letters and was passionately interested in Vincent's work and life since (the "Vincent" in his artist name is an hommage to the Dutch master and his blog is called "Van Gogh and I"). His father, an ingineer, wanted him to study mathematics & physics but, with the unconditional love and support of his mother, Eugenia, he studied the arts at the Sibiu Plastic Arts highschool from 1971 to 1975. After military service (where he did numerous portraits and sketches and even some oil paintings, in the spare time) he studied History and English at the "Lucian Blaga" University from his native town. Life took over and he couldn't paint but ocassionally (mostly presents for his mother birthday). During the December 1989 events in Romania he took some horrific photos of the "revolution" in Sibiu (there were about 100 dead and over 300 wounded in a 7-8 days period). He become a free lance and then a professional journalist and photo-journalist for the local press, Tribuna, Radical 21, Continent. For a while he was also a businessman and even a municipal councellor for a small center-left party. Immigrated in 1998 to Québec, Canada, with his wife and 3 children. Started to paint and draw again, with a vengence, after completing a Certificate in Visual Arts at the Sherbrooke University. In the next 15 years he produced more than 1000 paintings and 3000 drawings (mostly portraits since working also as a street portrayer). His paintings, very divers and colorful, ranging from landscapes and portraits and still lifes to bizarre and controversial surrealist or abstract composition (almost entirely using acrylics and acrylic inks and watercolors) can be find in local Quebec or Canadian collections but also in US, Israel, France, Germany and Romania. He experimented a lot, being a vigurous and resourceful draughtman and couldn't restrain himself to a "style" (manierism) to the dislike of art merchants. Portraits and surreal composition remain his main focus in the last years.