Romanian painter reminds me of Pollock and Jasper Johns

In my quest to find out how the Romanian art scene looks like, I stumbled upon this guy: Costin Craioveanu. I find his home webpage cheesy as hell, but still his art has something of that old school modern glamour that I like so much in Pollock and playful obviousness I like in Jasper Johns. I always found Pollock's drips to have a textural musicality and a rhythmic elegance. I am and will always be intrigued by the command he had on the unexpected, allowing the colors to superimpose in unexpected patterns, while also guiding the general look of composition (I remember in my 102 Art history class the prof showed us that if you pay close attention you will see how Pollock's work always have more color on the bottom and the drips would follow a general left to right directionality so that the entire composition is more readable). On the other hand, Jasper Johns' works can be passed off as banale. What could be so special about a map of the US or a flag? Or even numbers? But by eliminating the need to read into the subject matter, you can just focus on his remarkably versatile technique: bold strokes of the brush, thick application of color, the meticulous reproduction of the lines and stars of the US flag and then the tumultous composition of the map. To me, they both speak of the fabric of art and not about the need to find some hidden meaning behind the painting.

Craioveanu's works like Che Guevarra's or Marilyn Monroe's portrait remind me of that sense of guided surprise I get from Pollock's works, but especially the focus on the artistry that I get from Johns. One critic I read talked a lot about the Warholian similarity of his works, but I think that Warhol's intention is different from Craioveanu's. With Warhol, the emphasis lied more on the blurred distinction between mass-produced imagery and high art, while with Craioveanu there is a distinct painterly attitude present in his works. The colored spots, short brushstrokes and the spiral lines speak of the ABC of painting, while the bold colors thickly applied reference the art of the impressionists. The subject matter is easily recognizable, but the technique, well I could just stop and stare in awe at that technique for hours.