Gaia: Portrait Made from Dry Leaves and Snow by Young Man from Hunedoara

An unique portrait was made by a young man from Hunedoara. With the help of snow and dry leaves, the artist “penciled” a portrait of a woman of almost 500 square meters. He called it Gaia, and the result of the 9 hours of work made the images captured from the drone go viral. “I climbed the trees to get reference points“, Şerban Paul told Cronica Văii Jiului.

To make the portrait 33 meters long and 15 meters wide, Şerban worked two days in a row. First he thought of the sketch, the dimensions, then he looked for a “canvas” for his work. With the help of “pencils” made of leaves, the young man transformed the Poligon area, from Aninoasa, into a real work of art.

“I started on Saturday at 9 am and worked until around 4-5 pm. Someone helped me collect leaves, and I went and “scattered” them. On Friday I prepared the project, sketches, checked the land. One is to see from the drone and it’s another thing to struggle from below. The nearby trees helped me. I climbed the trees to get landmarks. You somehow come up with a sketch on the snow, you build some landmarks. There’s also math here, to give you the proportions of the portrait. It’s not a big deal, but you have to think about the details very well. There are some things that I didn’t learn from anyone, I ‘stole’ them. Through logic, you think of solutions like to solve certain visual problems. (…) It’s quite big, it’s a lot of work. You have to concentrate, it’s hard to visualize something so big, on the fly,” Şerban told the quoted source.

The young man is a graduate of Graphic Design and Digital Art at the Faculty of Arts in Timișoara, and at the same time he is also passionate about street art. The work made of snow and dry leaves, however, falls under what the world of artists calls Land Art.

“This is a form of artistic expression called Land Art, in which elements from nature are used. With leaves I have never seen before. I have seen with branches, stones, natural pigments. I have seen white snow and in my mind I have seen a sheet white paper and then I thought what can I come up with to have the negative valences. I said it’s the leaves, they’re easy to collect, they’re natural, they’re close. I tried. It’s hard, the weather has to help you too, you have to the wind shouldn’t blow, you also have to have the right temperature, the snow should be good, it shouldn’t be too soft”, said the artist.

Through his artistic approach, which has gathered thousands of likes online, the young man aimed to promote Valea Jiului and hopes that Gaia will bring him recognition beyond Romania’s borders.