The exhibition “Then.Comes.Night,” opened at Ateliere Malmaison, offers a foray into the fascinating universe of portraits painted by Marius Bodea.

“The human and animal portraits set in sublime tension and immersed in nature by Marius Bodea are equally strong and sensible. This apparent contradiction is deepened by the imprinted genuine emotional intelligence and the lucidity with which the depicted characters acknowledge their existence. The chromatic chords dramatically amplify the standstill between two worlds, nourishing the meditative state. The lucidity is brought out by the directness of the face, the nuances of the gaze, the physiognomy, and the position of the body.

The paintings are the seismograms of the souls of those hypnotized by their own thoughts, of those estranged from this world. They experience the Cioranian loneliness of the world and, at the same time, feel alone in the world, paralyzed by the apprehension of the unknown, torn by the mental insufficiencies fueled by the expansion of time in a craze of relativism governed by the ideology of post-truth and post-humanism.

And yet, there is still hope since Marius Bodea, as a gesture against indifference, decided on exhibiting his “patients” at Celulele INVITRO from Malmaison and to engage in a dialogue with those who have the ability to see. Not in just another place, but in the defunct space of repression, of erasure of all human particularities and of mental torture from our recent history, now converted into a house of arts and freedom of expression, this is the very place Marius Bodea deemed worthy of putting his “patients” on the map of immortality and universal reflection. And the history is backing him, the past and present ideologies are closely knit, this is the moment of emerging from the nuanced solitude, it is the time of recollection and remembrance. The time of skepticism—which links the painter with all those nurtured by the complicity between insomnia, dream, and reality and who were the guardians of the night—is over.” Text by Alexandru Davidian, exhibition custodian.

The exhibition can be visited until April 21, 2024 at Atelierele Malmaison, 2nd floor.

Marius Bodea (b. 1986, Dumbrăveni) lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He studied painting at the University of Art and Design Cluj (2005-2010). He is represented by Galerie Martin van Zomeren, Netherlands.

Event organized under the coordination of the Invitro organization.