Parter Gallery in Cluj-Napoca (Iuliu Maniu Street, no. 3) presents the collective exhibition “One At A Time”, curated by Septimiu Jugrestan.
The artists who sign the works in the exhibition—Alexandra Constantinescu, Camilia Filipov, Maria Sicoie, Anca Stătica, Heidi Tradnik, Andreea Grigoraș, and Maria Brîneț —are graduates of the Sculpture Department of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca. They developed their creative paths on the coordinates of freedom of thought and action, the pleasure of exploring, and the integrity with which they chiseled their artistic philosophy.
“The title of the exhibition speaks of a cadence of relevance, of the artist’s obsessive need to count in his/her own time, in his/her own context, a characteristic attribute, moreover, of any human who, acquiring self-awareness, begins to evaluate seriously his/her own existence and purpose in the world, acting accordingly.
For the seven artists present here, this survey of the self in relation to the world surpasses the inherent aspects of feminism and femininity. Their plastic searches speak of the need to initiate and complete the journey inward, of directly experiencing reality and denying illusion, revealing an extreme versatility and ingenuity of artistic processes, creative strategies, and means of expression.
Looking at these works, we will find that, instead of immutable patterns and definitive formulations, we find transitivity, fluidity, ephemerality, phenomenology, suggestion instead of affirmation, environments and materials that speak of disintegration rather than coagulation and solidity. But at the same time, we will find the perfect symbiosis between the subject and the medium of expression: after all, how much physical substance is needed to answer the question of who am I in relation to the world?
Subscribing to themes such as man’s relationship with spirituality, the poses of the self in a social context, or the relationship of the creator to his own work, the works in the exhibition transcend the courage and sincerity with which these artists face their own uncertainties and vulnerabilities. Nonchalantly approaching delicate, uncomfortable, or even taboo subjects, questioning the springs of visual language and manifesting, each in its own way, dissociation from conventions, they confirm to us that any subject, any theme, any work environment, if treated honestly, they are worthy of becoming a support of original creative thinking.” (excerpt from the exhibition text).
