ETAJ artist-run space presents the solo exhibition My Old Growth Trees II by artist Maia Ștefana Oprea, a continuation of the series with the same title initiated in 2024 and first exhibited at Meron Gallery in Cluj.
“My Old Growth Trees II brings together paintings, drawings, and sculptures created mostly in October, during the artist’s first autumn residency at The Garden of Ideas in Nucșoara. Each work becomes a page in a visual journal—an echo of days spent in nature, between forest walks, cold rains, mushroom picking, cycling among fallen walnuts, gathering twigs, and drying slices of apples and pears. The old beeches of the area and the mushrooms found beneath their branches became the emotional and visual core of this series.
Through their imposing presence, these trees stand as witnesses of time and symbols of continuity. Their translation into painting and drawing reflects a process of careful observation, a dialogue between the rhythms of the forest and the inner rhythm of creation. The portraits of the beeches fragment and simplify chromatically, turning into tense frames between light and shadow—mirroring the way the gaze captures fleeting details in nature. The suspended sculptures complete the ensemble with organic shapes resembling branches that seem to twist endlessly. Nature becomes an extension of personal experience.
My Old Growth Trees II invites reflection on how the natural world becomes body, memory, and image—a bridge between interior and exterior, between lived time and represented time.”
(Curatorial text)
The exhibition opens to the public on November 1, in parallel with the collective show “The Garden of Ideas”, hosted at the ETAJ off-space within the Combinatul Fondului Plastic (29 Băiculești Street, Bucharest). It can be visited between November 1–27, 2025, by appointment only.
