Foreseeing the Present

Estopia Art Gallery is delighted to invite you on Thursday, September 17th, from 3.00 to 9.00 PM, at the opening of the group exhibition Foreseeing the Present*, which showcases a thrilling selection of works completed in the last 6 months by 7 of the artists in the Estopia portfolio – Marina Aristotel, Andrada Feșnic, Juhos Sándor, Sergiu Laslo, Madár Réka, Andrea Tivadar and Edith Torony.

The present time, a depository of concreteness, but also of our projections, dreams and fears, is the theme of this exhibition, which aims at exploring the impact of the recent period, one of isolation and uncertainty, on the way in which artists work, think and find solutions in times of crisis. May You Live in Interesting Times – the title of last year’s Venice Biennale, seems, when seen in the light of the period we are going through, almost a prophecy. In “interesting times”, the present expands itself and seems to swallow the other dimensions of time – “here and now is all that we have” is a thought that surrounds us with at least a bit of uneasiness.

But how do we live in this present time? We have asked this question to the participating artists, and launched them the challenge to interpret, at a very personal and creative level, the actual “temporal bubble”. The result? Each artwork can be seen as an “oracle” – one that speaks about the artists’ preoccupations, at first hand, but also as a window open towards the experiences that we all recognize and which shapes, out of pieces, the so different forms of what we call “now”.

For Marina Aristotel, the last months have brought a return to figurative – for her, the present triggered an irresistible impulse of “hunting” exotic spaces and shadows, as shown by her two exhibited works, Chasing Summer and Chasing Shadows. „This period should put our wheels in motion: nothing will be the same again, that is for sure”, Andrada Feșnic argues; one of her presented works, an enormous globe of light, seems, though, to embody a slight hope that the world could finally return to its balance… The Little Things. Fear of Losing (made during the Covid-19 isolation) is the metaphor of a „cubic cabinet of miniature curiosities”, a sort of Noah’s Arch, by means of which Juhos Sándor aims at saving the “truly important things”. How does a personal apocalypse look like is something that Madár Réka intends to show us in this exhibition, in a seducing remake of an abstract and allegorical dystopia. For Sergiu Laslo, instead, covering the face and hiding one’s look continues to be a powerful visual metaphor of escaping reality, as shown in one of his works, Stealing my mind, gently. Convinced that what we are facing now offers us the fascinating “opportunity of suspending time”, Andrea Tivadar conceives her new series of works, Blurred Abstraction, under the sign of the uncertainty and the unknown, like in her two presented works, Uncertain place and Unknown space. A transparent wire mesh filters the gaze of whoever would like to enter the Forbidden Place that Edith Torony creates in the work bearing this title – the artist keeps on exploring the urban periphery and the consequences of a chaotic consumerism, succeeding ultimately in pulling out of all these fragments, exiled at the margins of our world, the remains of a future that might look exactly as in her work, Synthetic Future.

We are pleased to announce that Estopia Art Gallery Lugano will reopen soon in October with Juhos Sándor’s solo show.

Foreseeing the Present
September 17^th – October 18^th, 2020
Opening: Thursday, September 17^th, from 3.00 to 9.00 PM
Participating artists: Marina Aristotel, Andrada Feșnic, Juhos Sándor, Sergiu Laslo, Madár Réka, Andrea Tivadar, Edith Torony
Curator: Irina Ungureanu
Estopia Art Gallery, 5 Bocsa Street, Bucharest
E-mail: office@estopiaartgallery.com
www.estopiaartgallery.com

*Note for visitors: We are delighted to invite you at the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, September 17th, from 3.00 to 9.00 PM, in a format adapted to the current situation, when we are all part of a collective effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19 virus. On these grounds and following the recommendation of authorities, the exhibition will be open for visit on September 17th, from 3.00 to 9.00 PM, and, starting the 18^th of September, according to the normal working hours of the gallery, or by appointment. The show will be open to the public until October 18th. The access in the gallery will be made according to the social distancing norms. Wearing a mask is compulsory, either your own or the one we will make available for use at the entrance in the gallery.

Born in 1985, Marina Aristotel lives and works in Bucharest.
She graduated in Painting from the National University of Arts, Bucharest, in 2015, and earned her MA in the same field in 2017. Trained as a painter, she oriented herself towards resin as main media, while experimenting with installation and other media and techniques. If her previous series combined painting, layering and assemblage, while focusing on abstraction as the means to express best her artistic vision, more recently the artist has returned to figurative. She participated in several group shows such as, in Bucharest, Death, LaBorna Gallery; Diploma, Palatul Știrbei, and Atelier 19&34, Visual Arts Center; Spatial Activity Studio 9, a workshop held by prof. Slawomir Brzsoska and Rafal Gorczynski, Poznan University, UNA Galeria, in 2017; and An Abstract Feeling, 418 Gallery, Bucharest, 2016, among others. Estopia Art Gallery presented her first solo show, AASAMBLAJ in Bucharest, 2019 and Colour Splinters in Lugano, 2020.

Andrada Feșnic was born in 1987 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where she lives and works.
She studied Painting at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, where she earned her BA in 2016 and her MA in 2018. In 2015 she won an Erasmus mobility at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. The A+ Project Space housed the artist’s solo exhibition Aftermath in 2018, at Centrul de Interes, Cluj-Napoca. She presented her works in a series of group shows and international projects, including a performance as part of the project Performing the Unconscious, Freud Museum, London, in 2015. In 2019 she presented her first solo show, Fractured Realities, with Estopia Art Gallery in Bucharest, followed by Fractured Realities II at Estopia Lugano. For Andrada Feșnic, painting is a true experimental field defined by the overlapping of layers, the collage painterly effect and the carefully orchestrated decomposition of figurative elements.

Born in 1993 in Cluj-Napoca, where he lives and works, Sergiu Laslo studied Painting at the University of Arts and Design in the same city. In 2019 he presented his first personal exhibition, Lighting Grey, at the Estopia Art Gallery, in Bucharest, receiving public and critical acclaim, followed by his second solo at Estopia Lugano the same year. Since 2017, he has taken part in various group shows in Romania and abroad, including Going East at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London; in Cluj, at the Bombastic Cultural Space and Workshop Launloc, DIY (Do It Yourself), Gara Mică Cultural Space; Paintings and Jewelry, Wine Notes, and Close Encounters of the Ninth Kind, City Art Space and Double Tree at Hilton; Rebellive Art / Conscious, A fashion-infused Art Zine, in Budapest, and I Don’t Emanate Carbon, Halucinarium – Triaj creativ, in Bucharest.

Born in 1981 in Miercurea – Ciuc, Madár Réka lives and works in Timișoara, Romania.
She earned her BA and MA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, West University of Timișoara. She presented her works in solo shows, namely Plastic People, at Calina Gallery, Timișoara, in 2009, Vernissage, D’Ancona Budis Art Gallery in Bucharest, in 2011, Borders, Pygmalion Gallery, Timișoara, in 2012 and Re-wild, MAG Gallery, Como, Italy, in 2016. She participated in the project Snapshot Romania. Contemporary Artists from Romania, Imago Mundi – Luciano Benetton Collection in 2014 and exhibited in group shows at Halele TIMCO, Timișoara, Atelier 030202, Bucharest, The Art Museum of Cluj-Napoca, Delta Gallery in Arad and in the art fairs St-Art in Strasbourg, France, and Art Market Budapest. Estopia Art Gallery hosted her solo show, Dissection, in 2019. If in the last 5 years Réka has made herself known as a figurative painter, with a highly innovative visual approach, inspired by surrealist and hyperrealist art, with echoes from pop art, the artist is currently moving surprisingly towards abstract art.

Juhos Sándor was born in 1974 in Cluj-Napoca, where he lives and works
In 2003 he graduated in Painting from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, and in 2005 he obtained a master’s degree in the same specialization. In 2009 he defended his PhD thesis titled Representation of the Human Figure in the Virtual Space. 2008 is the year when Sándor retrospectively sets the transition from the romantic status of “hungry artist” to what was to become in the following 10 years his dominant visual mark: still life, a genre that would gain him a special profile among the artists of his generation. He presented his work in solo exhibitions, in Cluj, at Korunk Studio Gallery (Mixed Antimedia, 2011); Kaja Tanya (Paintings and Butterflies, 2014); Bazis Contemporary, The Paintbrush Factory (Death of Hummingbird, 2015), and Nano Gallery (Fragile Equations, 2015, and Act Anima, Nano Gallery / Center of Interest, along with Andras Szabo, in 2017). In 2019 Estopia Art Gallery, Bucharest, hosted his solo show Abundance.

Andrea Tivadar was born in 1991 in Botiz, Satu-Mare, she lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She earned her BA and MA in Painting from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, where she is currently preparing her PhD. She participated in a number of group shows, among which The Existential Space of Virtuality, Deák Erika Gallery, Budapest,Tra segno e colore, Accademia di Romania in Roma, Do It Yourself, Gara Mică Cultural Space, Cluj-Napoca, in 2016; The New Inmate, Centrul de Interes, Cluj-Napoca, Breaking Rules, Museum of Art, Cluj-Napoca, in 2017; Meanwhile in Painting, Budapest Galéria, and The Image in Painting. About Coming Out in Reality, Quadro Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, in 2018. In 2019 Estopia Art Gallery, Bucharest, hosted her solo show, Abstract Fluidity. While replacing figurative approach with a form of “synthetized creation” and abstraction of reality, the artist is convinced that “art is the sincerest expression of real life”. But what we see in her works is not at all “reality” in the conventional sense: on the contrary, in a fascinating play of forms and volumes, Andrea Tivadar seems to recover on her canvases an essentialized reinterpretation of an imagined or (re)invented reality of her own.

Edith Torony was born in 1988 in Timișoara, where she lives and works.
She graduated in Painting from the Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara. She earned her MA in the same field from the same institution in 2012. She has been a member of the Romanian Union of Artists, Timisoara branch, since 2011. She has presented her works in solo shows at Forma Gallery, Deva, in 2019; Pygmalion Gallery in 2018 and Calpe Gallery, in 2014, Timișoara, among others. She has participated in numerous group shows at Triade Gallery and Helios Gallery in Timișoara; Museum of Art, Arad; Museum of Art, Cluj-Napoca; European Parliament, Brussels; Marzia Frozen Gallery, Berlin etc. She has won the first prize for Painting at the Meeting Point International Biennial in Arad in 2017. In 2019 Estopia Art Gallery showcased her solo show, Hybrid Playground. While experimenting at the crossroads between abstract and figurative painting, Edith Torony undertakes a journey in the bizarre universe of urban periphery, in the attempt to allegorically recompose the devastating effects of junk invasion and consumerism on our living space.