How oil painter and interior designer Alex Sandulescu is pursuing his artistic ambitions, embracing new opportunities, and documenting the realities of an independent creative career.
What does it take to build a creative career in a new country? For Romanian-born artist and interior designer Alex Sandulescu, the answer involves curiosity, persistence, experimentation, and the willingness to start before everything is figured out.
In an interview with Alan Greenstein on the Support Our #Creatives podcast, Alex shared his journey from Romania to Los Angeles, how he discovered his passion for oil painting, and why he decided to document the ups and downs of building an artistic career through his YouTube series, My American Journey.
His story offers valuable lessons for independent artists, aspiring creatives, and anyone trying to turn a personal passion into a sustainable career.
From Romania to America: Pursuing the American Dream
Alex’s journey to the United States began while he was attending university in Romania. Through a Work and Travel program, he had the opportunity to experience America for the first time.
After returning home, he realized how much he missed the United States. Having grown up watching American movies, he was also drawn to the idea of the American Dream and the possibilities he associated with building a life there.
After completing his studies in interior design and architecture, Alex decided to return to America and pursue new opportunities.
However, he soon discovered that building a life in a new country was more challenging than he had expected.
Like many people who relocate to pursue their ambitions, Alex had to find work, develop professional relationships, and figure out how to establish himself in an unfamiliar environment.
His experience highlights an important reality: pursuing a dream rarely follows a straightforward path. Even when you have a clear ambition, the practical work of making it happen can be difficult and unpredictable.
How Interior Architecture Led to a Passion for Oil Painting
Alex initially relied on his background in interior design and architecture to establish himself professionally in the United States.
He worked on residential projects and commercial spaces, including coffee shops, helping clients develop attractive, functional environments.
Although he enjoyed interior design, an unexpected experience introduced him to another creative outlet.
While living in Los Angeles’s Koreatown neighborhood, Alex shared a house with another artist. One day, he watched his housemate working on paintings and felt inspired to create something of his own.
Alex had already been thinking about painting ideas and compositions, but he had never acted on those ideas.
Watching another artist work changed that.
He asked what supplies he needed, bought his materials, and started painting. As he explained during the interview, once he began, he never really stopped.
For Alex, this discovery felt like the culmination of experiences and interests that had been developing throughout his life.
His architectural background turned out to be a valuable foundation for painting. His understanding of textures, materials, colors, and perspective helped him approach his canvases with a different set of skills.
His experience illustrates how one creative discipline can strengthen another. Skills developed in one field can become unexpected advantages when exploring a new artistic direction.
The Challenges of Being an Independent Artist
One of the central topics of the interview was the difficulty of establishing an independent career in the art world.
Alex describes an independent artist as someone who does not have gallery representation and must find ways to promote and sell their work independently.
That means taking responsibility for much more than creating art.
Artists must also find audiences, develop relationships, identify exhibition opportunities, and discover ways to connect their work with potential buyers and collectors.
Alex has participated in smaller gallery exhibitions and has sometimes organized exhibitions himself by renting spaces. These experiences have helped him meet people, but they have not yet produced the major breakthrough he hopes to achieve.
Finding the right gallery and building the professional connections needed to expand his career remain ongoing challenges.
His experience reflects a common difficulty for independent creators: producing excellent work is only one part of building a sustainable career. Getting that work seen by the right people is another challenge entirely.
For Alex, the goal is to develop an international career, find meaningful gallery representation, and eventually exhibit his paintings both throughout the United States and internationally.
He is still working toward that goal, and he wants people to see the process as it unfolds.
My American Journey: Showing the Process, Not Just the Success
Alex’s YouTube series, My American Journey, grew out of his interest in travel, filmmaking, and promoting his artwork.
He originally began making travel videos to showcase interesting places around the United States. Creating those videos also helped him develop practical filmmaking and editing skills.
Over time, however, he realized that he wanted to tell a broader story.
Rather than focusing exclusively on destinations, he decided to document his efforts to establish himself as an artist in America.
The series now follows his creative ambitions, artistic experiments, and attempts to bring his work to a wider audience.
One example involved a painting inspired by a Joe Rogan podcast featuring Donald Trump. Alex created the painting, made a print, and attempted to send it to Rogan. When the package was returned, he sent it again and considered the experience an interesting story worth sharing.
For Alex, the appeal was not simply the artwork itself. It was the entire process: the original idea, the painting, the decision to send it, and the unexpected complications that followed.
He wants viewers to see the reality behind his efforts, including the emails that receive no response, exhibitions that do not lead to major opportunities, and paintings that he believes will make a difference but do not sell.
As he explained in the interview, he does not want to disappear for ten years and return only after achieving success. He wants to show the journey while he is still in the middle of it.
This approach makes My American Journey more than a travel series. It is an ongoing record of an artist trying to build a creative life, learn from experience, and discover what works.
The Work Behind the Videos
Producing the series takes considerable time and effort.
Alex explained that he may spend several weeks editing a video before returning to painting for another few weeks. Because he wants the films to look polished, he cannot produce new episodes as frequently as he might like.
He also sees Los Angeles as a valuable location for his filmmaking. The city’s museums, architecture, cultural attractions, and surrounding destinations provide a wide range of subjects for future episodes.
His planned projects include visits to museums and other interesting locations, combining his interest in travel with his broader creative journey.
The process also demonstrates how learning one skill can support another. His experience with filming and editing gives him additional ways to communicate his ideas, share his work, and connect with potential audiences.
Using Artificial Intelligence as a Creative Assistant
Another interesting part of the conversation explored how Alex uses artificial intelligence in his work.
He explained that he uses AI as an assistant to brainstorm ways to get his art in front of people and to obtain feedback on painting concepts.
For example, after developing a composition, he may ask AI for a second opinion about whether something in the painting should be changed or moved.
He described an experience in which AI identified the same issue he had been sensing but could not quite articulate. The feedback helped him look at the composition more logically.
However, Alex emphasized the importance of having original ideas of your own.
He does not believe artists should depend on AI to generate all their creative direction. Instead, he sees it as a tool that becomes more useful when it has context about an artist’s individual style, preferences, and working methods.
His perspective offers a practical way to think about emerging technology: AI can support creative thinking, provide feedback, and help with problem-solving without replacing the artist’s own judgment and vision.
The artist remains responsible for the work and the decisions that shape it.
A New Painting Series: The Many Personalities of a Bunny
Alex also shared details about an evolving series of oil paintings featuring a bunny sculpture.
The concept builds on an earlier painting called The Communist Bunny, which drew inspiration from Romania’s history as a communist country.
For the newer series, Alex wants to explore different human emotions, identities, and roles through variations on the bunny character.
His ideas include a sad bunny, a bad bunny, a happy bunny, a masculine bunny, and characters inspired by different professions, including an architect bunny and a podcast bunny.
The series gives him an opportunity to explore a range of subjects through a recurring visual character.
It also reflects his interest in combining conceptual ideas with the technical and visual possibilities of oil painting.
By approaching different themes through the same basic subject, Alex can develop a recognizable series while continuing to experiment with personality, emotion, and meaning.
Balancing Painting, Interior Design, and Filmmaking
Although painting has become a major focus of his creative ambitions, Alex continues to work in interior design.
His services include conceptual design, space planning, material and furniture selection, three-dimensional visualizations, and the development of an overall aesthetic for residential interiors.
Maintaining multiple creative interests can be demanding. Alex must balance client work with the time required to create paintings and produce his YouTube videos.
Nevertheless, he enjoys the variety and says it keeps him from getting bored.
Each discipline offers something different. Interior design draws on his architectural training, painting gives him an opportunity to explore his artistic ideas, and filmmaking allows him to document his experiences and share his work with an audience.
Rather than treating these interests as completely separate pursuits, Alex is finding ways for them to complement one another.
His journey is a reminder that a creative career does not always need to fit into a single professional category. Sometimes, a combination of skills and interests can help a creator develop a distinctive approach.
Advice for Aspiring Artists and Creatives
When Alan asked what advice he would give to people hoping to follow a similar path, Alex offered several lessons drawn from his own experience.
1. Figure Out What You Really Want to Do
Alex explained that it took him time to understand how he wanted to combine painting, design, and filmmaking.
His professional direction evolved through experience rather than arriving as a complete plan at the beginning.
Aspiring creatives can benefit from giving themselves room to explore their interests and discover which activities they want to pursue more seriously.
2. Find Your Own Way
Alex cautioned against simply copying his approach. He does not know whether every part of his strategy will succeed, and he believes each person needs to find a path that fits their own talents and circumstances.
What works for one artist may not work for another.
Instead of following someone else’s formula exactly, look for ways to develop an approach that reflects your interests, strengths, and goals.
3. Use Your Existing Talents
Alex encouraged creatives to use the things they already enjoy as advantages.
Someone who loves filmmaking might use video to tell stories about their work. Someone with a background in design might bring that experience into painting or another artistic discipline.
The goal is to identify your strengths and find ways to apply them creatively.
4. Start Before You Feel Ready
Perhaps the most important lesson from the interview was Alex’s encouragement to take action rather than wait for perfect circumstances.
He did not wait until he had a major gallery, a large audience, or approval from the established art world before calling himself an artist.
Instead, he started creating and learned along the way.
His advice is straightforward: if there is something you want to do, begin working toward it today. Developing your skills takes time, and you cannot learn everything in advance.
Taking action creates opportunities to experiment, make mistakes, and discover what works.
5. Be Willing to Share the Struggles
Alex’s decision to document his progress also demonstrates the value of being open about the difficult parts of a creative career.
People often hear about artists after they have achieved recognition, but they may never see the unsuccessful attempts, unanswered messages, or uncertain decisions that came before it.
By sharing those experiences, Alex hopes to give viewers a more realistic picture of the creative process.
Those experiences may also help others learn from his mistakes and understand that setbacks are part of trying something new.
Looking Ahead: Building an International Art Career
Alex’s immediate plans include continuing to produce My American Journey, exploring new locations for his videos, and developing his bunny painting series.
His longer-term ambition is to establish an international career as a painter.
He hopes to find gallery representation that can help introduce his work to important collections and create opportunities for exhibitions in the United States and abroad.
At the same time, he intends to keep documenting his progress, including the successes and failures that shape his career.
That combination of creating, experimenting, and sharing gives his journey a distinctive quality. Rather than presenting a finished success story, he is inviting people to follow along as he works toward his goals.
Whether his next breakthrough comes through a painting, a gallery connection, a YouTube episode, or an unexpected opportunity, he is committed to continuing the work.
Final Thoughts: You Don’t Need Permission to Begin
Alex Sandulescu’s story is about more than moving from Romania to the United States or discovering a passion for oil painting.
It is about allowing a creative life to evolve, using existing skills in new ways, and continuing to work toward a goal even when the outcome remains uncertain.
His journey also demonstrates that creativity can extend beyond the finished product. It can include the process of learning, experimenting, building an audience, and finding new ways to share your work with the world.
For independent artists and aspiring creators, his advice is worth remembering: understand what you want to do, use your talents, find your own path, and start before you feel completely ready.
You do not need to have everything figured out before you begin.
Sometimes, the most important step is simply to start creating.
Connect with Alex Sandulescu
To learn more about Alex’s work and follow his creative journey, explore the following channels mentioned during the interview:
- Website: alexsandulescu.com
- Art and painting: Find Alex on Instagram at Artist Alex S. (@artistalexs)
- Interior design: Explore his separate interior design account ARMARADA. (@_armarada)
- YouTube: Search for ArtistAlexS and follow My American Journey. (My American Journey)
Visit his website for links to his other creative projects and online profiles.
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About Guest Alex Sandulescu
Alex Sandulescu is a Romanian-born artist and interior designer based in Los Angeles. With a background in interior architecture, Alex combines his passion for design, oil painting, and filmmaking to explore new ways of creative expression. Through his distinctive artwork, including a playful and thought-provoking series of bunny paintings, and his YouTube series My American Journey, Alex shares the realities of building a creative career, embracing challenges, and pursuing his artistic ambitions. His journey reflects a commitment to originality, perseverance, and finding your own path as an artist.
About Host Alan Greenstein
Alan Greenstein, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, is the founder and executive producer of Support Our #creatives, an organization dedicated to helping underrepresented creators and artists gain opportunities to create, distribute, and showcase their work. He hosts the Support Our #creatives podcast and works as a producer, executive producer, actor, and blogger, with experience across films, web series, stage plays, podcasts, and music. Alan also serves on the boards of the Bella Levy Foundation, which fights human trafficking; and London Glossy, a UK publication founded by Deborah Thomas, covering news, sports, lifestyle, business, and society.
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About Support Our #creatives
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The Support Our #creatives blog was founded with the purpose of documenting Alan Greenstein’s experiences in the entertainment industry. The Support Our #creatives podcast is a spinoff from the blog – it features conversations with artists, entrepreneurs, and other creative people about their work, experiences, challenges, and ambitions.
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