“New Hope,” Roman Tolici’s latest show, which is on display at the Multicultural Center of Transilvania University in Brașov, explores the relationship between humanity and Earth’s history. The exhibition will be presented in four other cities in Romania – Timișoara, Sibiu, Bucharest and Tulcea, consolidating its status as an itinerant project aimed at bringing contemporary art closer to diverse communities.

“NEW HOPE brings together a selection of recent works, which represent a deep reflection on the major transformations that have redefined the contemporary world, both at the macro, social and political level, and at the micro level, of individual experiences. Exploring the relationship between man and Earth’s history, NEW HOPE becomes a concrete space built on both human vulnerability and resilience in a time when physical and spiritual boundaries are constantly being challenged.

History offers innumerable examples where hope has proved futile: empires have collapsed, terrible disasters have shattered people’s hopes, and terrible injustices have gone unpunished. Yet hope stubbornly kept resurfacing. This new series explores precisely this abstract and fragile feeling we call HOPE.”
Roman Tolici

“A context of accelerated changes:
Typically, socio-political paradigm shifts unfold slowly over wide temporal rifts, allowing humanity to absorb them gradually. However, there are scenarios in human history in which major changes occurred abruptly, following unexpected events, which made their integration impossible, thus becoming generators of collective trauma. The past four years have been marked by a series of unpredictable events that have generated rapid transformations with a profound impact on daily life. In this context, Roman Tolici’s works capture moments of uncertainty, adaptation and the search for a new balance.” (excerpt from the curatorial text)

“The new hope that Roman Tolici invokes in his paintings can be a paradoxical concept, which contains from the start the boundless, but slightly dreamlike horizon of a “healed” planet and an “adequate” humanity, but also the indisputable limits of a projection fractured by the reality on the ground – the terrain of the imagination contaminated by apocalyptic scenarios and visible existential tensions. […] Painting is therefore hope, and the act of painting is the activation of a whole arsenal of survival strategies.”
Diana Marincu, art critic and curator

The exhibition can be visited at the Multicultural Center of Transilvania University in Brașov (B-dul Eroilor, no. 29, Brașov) until January 31, 2025.