Art Encounters 2017 Exhibitions:
That Obscure Object of Desire

Mircea Suciu (b. 1978) works with different materials such as acrylic, oil and often combines them with monoprint techniques. For a long time his works were based on images he found in newspapers, magazines and other media, to which he recently added props, curtains and unrevealed objects. Besides mainly sociopolitical and psychological themes such as punishment and exile, he often features lone and isolated figures.

Selected exhibitions: Proof of Life/Lebenszeichen, Weserburg / Museum Fur Moderne Kunst, Bremen (2017); Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Zachęta National Gallery, Warsaw (2017); Ship of Fools, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (2016, solo); Root and Branch, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (2015, solo); The Fracture, The National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest (2015, solo); Defaced, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado (2015); This Side of Paradise, Sotheby S|2, London (2014); Nightfall—New tendencies in figurative painting, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2013); Between the Lines, All Visual Arts, Londra (2013); Black Milk, AEROPLASTICS contemporary, Brussels (2012, solo); Metamorphosis: The Transformation of Being, All Visual Arts, London (2012); European Travellers: Art from Cluj Today, Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle Budapest (2012); The Fall, SLAG Gallery, New York City (2009, solo), How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes, SLAG Gallery, New York City (2008, solo).

He participated in the 10th edition of the Gwangju Biennale (2014) as well as in the Prague Biennale 4 (2009).

Mircea Suciu’s works are the result of a stratified and elaborate creative process that combines traditional painting with “monoprint”, a technique to transfer photography to canvas. In his practice the creative process is as important as the final work, yet the results are surprising, often black and white representations in which the acrylic grid structure traversing the image stands as a reminder of the artist’s method, adding a state of frailty to the whole image.

Conceived as an extension to Goya’s etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, the Color Palette series inquires about the relationship between abstraction and representation. The artist sought out representative images, images of characters under the influence of religious ecstasy and hysteria being gripped by theories about the power of alienation. Under the burden of reality, some lost souls go beyond the bounds of reason.

Images:

1.Mircea Suciu, Portrait

2.Mircea Suciu, color palette (3) (2017), Oil, acrylic, monoprint, 185 x 120 cm, courtesy of Mircea Suciu and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium