Art Encounters 2017 Exhibitions:
The Catcher in the Mirror

Florin Ștefan (b. 1968) teaches at the Art and Design University in Cluj-Napoca and is the director of Spațiu Intact from Centrul de Interes in Cluj-Napoca. His oil paintings are both interiors and landscapes, the artist focusing especially on the sensuality of the femane nude, presented in various postures.

Selected exhibitions: La boîte rouge, Iconoscope, Montpellier (2017, solo); Face Time, Anne-Sarah Benichou Gallery, Paris (2016, solo); ArtCapital Biennial, Budapest (2016); From Mere Abstract to Almost Figurative, Zorzini Gallery (2015); Elegia, Le Plafond Amsterdam (2014, solo); Dead Man. Supravietuirea prin imagine, Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca (2012, solo); Roumanie Insolite, Festival Balkan Tranzit, Normandy (2008); Florin Ștefan – Innere Landschaften [Interior Landscapes], Kunststation Kleinsassen, Fulda (2005, solo); Gradina Edenului, TRAFO, Budapest / Galeria Mare UAP, Cluj / Artexpo, National Theatre etaj ¾, Bucharest / Nantes (1999 / 1998, solo).

Florin Ștefan has dedicated himself to a figurative and narrative painting, which gives the impression of reinventing, or even re-enchanting, the internal scheming of modernity as much as the regaining of the normality of the subject. It is important to remember that history has not spared this region of the world and that, over the past several decades, art has been endlessly punctuated by references to the tragic events and negative figures that have marked the country over several generations. He is one of the first who has freed himself from the burden of the past and has invested himself, body and soul, in a present that is dotted by his doubts, his anxieties and, above all, a constant battle with himself and with painting. All his works emphasize this confrontation with the challenges of intimacy and this tug-of-war that does not spare reflection as the spring of the rebound.

Images:

1. Florin Ștefan, Portrait

2. Florin Ștefan, Venus (2017), oil on canvas, 150 x 200 cm