The Joy of Art

by Jill Duff-Hoppes

Petru Cuciuc landed his first job as an artist at a very early age. He was in first grade, to be exact, in his home country of Moldova in Eastern Europe. In school, Petru’s classmates would bring him small gifts of apples or toys in exchange for his help with their art assignments.

“How do you know if I can paint or not?” Petru asked them. The other children matter-of-factly replied, “You’re the son of that artist. I know you can do it!”

The kids weren’t wrong. Petru comes from a long line of artists, and his father was an art teacher and graphic designer in their community of about 8,000 people.

“Everybody knew we were a family of artists,” says Petru, now a 47-year-old resident of Lake Mary. “If they had art needs, they came to us.”

A Legacy Fulfilled

Petru indeed became a professional artist, himself, earning a bachelor’s degree in art at the National University of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Romania. He then worked for more than 20 years as an art director in creative industries such as gaming and advertising. Now, Petru is the art director in the marketing department at Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center in Orlando. And for the past year, he has also been exhibiting his personal artwork at outdoor festivals and galleries throughout Central Florida, winning several awards along the way.

One of Petru’s paintings was even chosen to be the poster art for the popular St. Johns River Festival of the Arts, which was recently held in Sanford (see page 30 for full coverage). Petru uses a blend of oils and acrylics to create his paintings, which feature vibrant colors and energetic brushstrokes. His subject matter celebrates beauty and includes women with bouquets of flowers, couples in romantic embraces, cityscapes, playful dogs, and always-watchful cats.

“I’m calling myself a happy expressionist,” Petru says.

Petru, his wife Rebeca, and their two children have lived in Lake Mary since 2019, when they came to the United States for Rebeca’s job. Son David is a senior at Crooms Academy of Information Technology and daughter Eva attends Seminole High School. Just a year after they moved to Lake Mary, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Petru then found himself with extra time on his hands, which he devoted to creating his own art.

Until then, he says, “I never put too much focus on doing art for art’s sake. I started to paint for myself and some of my friends. I never intended to show my art to other people.”

Showtime

Rebeca had other ideas, though, especially after they learned about the annual art show that was practically in their own backyard: the Lake Mary-Heathrow Festival of the Arts. With his wife’s encouragement, Petru applied to be an artist in the 2024 Lake Mary-Heathrow festival and was accepted into the show. The experience was a positive one, and Petru began exhibiting in other shows in quick succession, including the UpTown Art Expo in Altamonte Springs, the St. Johns festival, and the Maitland Rotary Art Festival, to name a few. He has shown his work elsewhere in Florida but prefers to exhibit closer to home.

“When you are going around your community, it’s even more rewarding,” he says. “People are more interested in your art. They’re more willing to ask about your work.”

And although Petru is grateful for the awards he has won thus far, the most satisfying part of sharing his work publicly is when someone likes his art enough to buy a painting and hang it in their home.

“That is feeding my soul,” he says. “My goal is to make people happy when they are looking at my paintings. That’s why I’m painting, to make people feel happy about life.”

To learn more about the artist, visit Art.PetruCuciuc.com.