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Something I started working on a while ago, a spontaneous short comic book story about a place I used to visit from to time to time during these last years. A place that never really stays or feels the same every time I go back to it. Sometimes it can be deceiving, it can offer you exactly what you urge for, it can patch up wounds, or it can deepen them. I am never really in control of it, or the way it affects me, I just draw it unconsciously and I am drawn to it, being at its mercy. Here are the first three pages, a glimpse of this place. More will come as soon as I will find the courage to enter it again. I give you "Suferar and the Never-ending Gardens".

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“Suferar. Praising the Universal Balance”. Bringing the pieces together and preparing to paint the background for all.

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The painting process behind “Suferar. Praising the Universal Balance”

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A short break from work to ease the soul. "Suferar. Mending broken hearts".

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A glimpse  of the short comic in the making "Suferar and the Never-Ending Gardens".

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Implant pentru Refuz - Subradar By the end of last year, "Implant pentru Refuz" released their latest album entitled "Subradar", which is a beautiful collection of songs created in collaboration with different artists they became friends with throughout their journey. Therefore each song is created with a different artist they invited to collaborate with. The album takes you on a journey trough different corners of the world, with its broken Cessna Monoplane being kept in the air by a very early zeppelin model, barely flying. But that only means that there is more than enough time to reflect and witness all the beauty of the world from that angle and also cherish the moment. Here are some images with all the illustrations for the vinyl cover, both the interior and the exterior of the cover, and a different sticker design for each side of the two vinyls that the album will contain.

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Spreads from the graphic novel in the making “Suferar”.

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An article about Les Oiseaux Lumineux.

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A collection of illustrated scenes from the future graphic novel “Suferar”.

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This was the best day of my life! The day the books finally arrived at my door step. Thank you, Les Aventuriers de l'Etrange for this wonderful collaboration, you are golden! You can per-order the book right here: https://www.les-aventuriers-de-letrange.fr/produit/les-oiseaux-lumineux/?fbclid=IwAR3as9ck9np3SXOH8PWz51IWaKn0ZvXwsbalhmF07VyA1aeLb85jcSHs51w

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The entire collection of illustrations for the new album "Soundless Voice" by Triptonus. Just a few things left to do here and there and we're almost done!

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Triptonus - Soundless Voice Triptonus is on the verge of releasing their third album which also happens to be the final part of the trilogy presenting a druid's journey into the unknown. And yet again I had both the honor and the pleasure of designing it. But before I start presenting the concept behind their third album, I would like to talk a bit about the artwork for their previous two albums, so that we can have a better understanding of the concept in it's entirety. About Triptonus' albums and the story behind them from the artwork's perspective: Their first album “Sprout” was released back in 2013, the artwork presented a druids birth and first interactions with the world around him. He came from a seed that was buried deep underground, under multiple layers of lost knowledge, he eventually reached the surface, and when he did so, the first thing that he did was to reach out for the nearest branch and turn it into his staff, which he would carry with him everywhere he would go throughout his journeys. Their second album, was released in 2015 and it presented the druid's long journey across the continuously decomposing and ever changing world. Witnessing all these strange phenomenons that were taking place all around him, the druid started to lose his mind and he eventually decided that the best thing that he could do to be at peace with himself and with everything around him, was to accept the chaos that was coming his way, to embrace it and try to work with it as best as he could. And finally, now, by the end of 2019, Triptonus is about to release their third album entitled “Soundless Voice”, which the band describes as being: “The end of a trilogy and the start of a new era.” The artwork presents the sacred moment when the druid is at peace with himself and with the world around him. He decides to embrace the chaos and tries to give it a shape in his own vision. He does this by planting a tree, a special kind of tree, a Varicellian Tree. Soundless Voice album artwork: The Varicellian Tree specie shows perforations and rashes of different sizes spread all over its branches. The tree at its early stages, has the tendency to keep all its music contained in itself without letting a single sound out. It is not an expansive tree, it grows only upwards and its branches never grow any leaves or any flowers whatsoever. It is not a spectacular rich tree, but more of a frail and curios tree. Sooner or later as the tree grows, it starts to become overwhelmed by all the beautiful sounds that it has accumulated and trapped inside itself over the years, and as a result, rashes start to appear allover its branches, then the rashes start showing small perforations that resemble, more or less, the Suferar Star, a special star similar to a flower with eight petals. From these tiny perforations, the tree finally releases, unwillingly, but necessary, its music sound waves through its Swirling Leaf Birds, that are flying back and forth from the holes and are following the music's rhythm, intensity and vibration. At this stage, the tree is considered to be mature, and although it finds itself in a constant mild physical pain from all the wounds, the pain is slowly counterbalanced and neutralized by the beautiful sensation of the music that the introverted tree kept locked inside of it over the years. The tree reached that certain point in its life when it could no longer contain the beauty that was never meant to be contained to begin with. It grew in its own stubbornness way and it managed in that manner for a while, until the music outgrew it and started scratching the surface of the tree so it could escape from it and complete it and the world around it. As the druid's tree starts reshaping the world around it thorough all the ever shedding Swirling Leaf Birds and beautiful sounds, the sky opens up, and The Birth Nebula shows itself through multiple warm colorful clouds. And hidden between those clouds we see a vague projection, a projection that reached all parts of the universe and it eventually reached the druid's world as well. Being haunted brutally all his life by chaotic events, the universe finally shows its tender side and reaches out to the druid, offering him the peace that he searched for all this time, but couldn't dare to think that he would ever reach it in this life. The universe finally acknowledges the druid and his efforts and embraces him through a form of a warm projection of certain character, Phoebe from the graphic novel Suferar. There is a certain scene in Suferar, where Phoebe does an act of pure love that is so powerful, it is projected everywhere throughout the universe, through all possible dimensions and crossing all possible barriers of space and time. And it is exactly that moment that has been projected into the druid's world and as a response to his final gesture, planting his tree and trying to reshape and find the balance in his world. It is that precise projection that we will meet again, soon, in another dimension, this time in a form of a comic book entitle "Birds from Varicellius" (Les Oiseaux Lumineux in French).

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Mühle House and the Mühle Family I always felt that in life, the things that are the most beautiful and the most sincere, also have the greatest force and the best chance to endure and survive the test of time. And that is because they all emanate a certain energy that attracts us to them involuntary, and before we know it, we find ourselves gravitating around them. Even when these things happen to be shaky, frail or degraded, they always remain strong, because they represent more than just the mere image of an object. They represent a very special mixture of stories, symbols and a ton of emotions, that create that certain energy that attracts us. And it's always the most wounded of those beautiful things, that happen to hide the best and most overwhelming stories of all. In fact, whenever we look at these things and we feel attracted to them, we actually find ourselves attracted to other people that we know too little about. But we suddenly become curios enough to want to discover their stories, and with that, maybe also discover something new about ourselves. This is how I became curios about Mühle House. Back when I just became a student in Timişoara, I had the opportunity to live, for a while, nearby Mühle House. So, I passed by her several times on my daily routine and I would always look at her, study her beauty and wonder what was her story and what was to become of her. Back then, I though it was a very strange phenomenon, that such a jewel was neglected. I found it strange that, although the object was so strongly pronounce and had so much to offer, it was never given the chance to exist and be part of her surroundings. It was as if it had been disconnected from reality. Back then I thought that surely there must be a plan for her and that surely there must be some people that have already taken action and started to come up with a solution to save her. And the fact that there is nothing happening right now, is because a good strategy takes time and dedication. So, I didn't want to jump to any silly and premature conclusions, because I wanted to believe that the situation was complex, but an appropriate solution was surely on the way. This was back between the years 2009-2010. After some time, I started doing some research about the house and I found out about the Mühle Family and I also found out that this jewel was actually their home. I found out about Wilhelm Mühle and Árpád Mühle, his son, and their achievements. I found out about Wilhelm Mühle's rose plantations, greenhouses and vast gardens, where he would produce over 1500 of species. I found out that the roses that were grown here in Timişoara, were also distributed around Europe, and after some time, they found their way to the gardens of many of the royal families around Europe. I found out that Timişoara received the title of the „The City of Roses” due to Wilhelm Mühle's achievements. When I started working on the first sketches with Mühle House for the good people from Heritage of Timişoara and their upcoming event, I was trying to figure out which approach was most suited for the illustration. I could have drawn the house as it was in the past, in it's good days, but then I would ignore it's present condition, although, I would have a more optimistic approach for the illustration. Or I could have drawn the house as it is now, degraded, and put aside all the magic in this case. In the end, I chose to improvise and draw a different Mühle House from another parallel dimension, where she finds herself in the same degraded state, only in this version, she grows tired of waiting for her salvation and finds that she can be self sufficient and blossom all by herself. She starts covering her wounds with vegetation as a spontaneous solution. Her walls turn into green and her facades start redecorating all by themselves, the details are growing the same way and at the same rate as the vegetation around and inside the house, a natural growth of both the environment and the architecture. And in stead of the roof, we now see a giant and elegant rose rising, covering and protecting the house from any bad weather. So, we find ourselves in the presence of a Mühle House as a living organism, that is in the middle of a regeneration process. A regeneration process that was triggered by the energy that I mentioned earlier. A regeneration that came from the house's beauty and sincere characteristic. A regeneration that wouldn't have been possible if the house wouldn't have had all the stories and memories of the Mühle Family that surrounds her. At the moment, the house is currently supported and kept alive by some temporal wooden structures. In the illustration, the house is supported by none other than Wilhelm and Josephine Mühle, and in the center of the illustration, standing on the terrace in front of the house, we find their child, Árpád Mühle. But we see him represented differently. Instead of his face, we see a Suferar star, a special star who's form resembles that of a flower's corolla with eight petals. Árpád is presented here as a dehumanized and timeless entity, a symbol. A symbol of the house's beauty and sincere architecture. A symbol of eternity. We will always find little Árpád playing on that terrace and waiting for a response from us regarding the house's fate.

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Suferar. Praising the Universal Balance Last Summer, a certain scene from Suferar was constantly on my mind, so I dropped everything, I grabbed a pen and some paper and started sketching to get it out of my system. In the initial sketch, the work was meant to be a tryptic with a center wider piece showing Phoebe surrounded by all the friends she made throughout her adventures in the city Zilluvitha. And two secondary pieces that showed two key scenes from the past, with two characters from the graphic novel, Candle and Cheese-Face Jim, that made the current scene from the center piece possible. The center piece practically shows Candle's vision of a united Zilluvitha finally taking shape through Phoebe and all her friends from all corners of the city, Candle's "Unity Children". In the end, the whole work turned out to be made out of 5 pieces and a total size of 200 x 35 cm.

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Painting the “Suferar and the Apple Pie” poster.

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Suferar and the Apple Pie Decided to start this new collection of works with a personal piece and what I like to think of as a "Lucky Charm" poster. I always liked apple pies, though, I never had the pleasure of tasting one of Phoebe's Special Suferarian Apple Pies which she would always prepare with much love and dedication while enjoying the act itself. She always did love apples, apples and sponges, she never could decide which one of them she liked best, but then again, she never bothered thinking so much about that. It was never a competition, she was just grateful that she had so many beautiful things around her that brought her joy and that was more than she could ever ask for. Although sponges never ate anything, in the sense that they only needed water to survive, when they would witness Phoebe preparing one of her pies, they would become curious and fascinated by both the act itself and the result. They were mesmerized by the moment and they started imagining what such a delightful treat would taste like, it must have been magical.