In the series of paintings selected for this exhibition, the artist builds poetic spaces that are as real as they are imaginary, saturated with an almost mystical beauty, emotionally charged by the memory of the purity of the infinite Transylvanian forests.

Ioan Sbârciu’s monumental landscapes, neither figurative nor completely abstract, express a wide range of current themes, from existential precariousness to climate change, the aggressive exploitation of natural resources, and the urgency of redefining our relationship both with the surrounding nature and, especially, with our own human nature. The artist masterfully envelops these essential themes in a fine and complex pictorial language, organized in fields of color that reverberate moments of poetic illumination, states of grace, or moments of melancholy.

A glimmer of hope is recreated on canvas through gestural pictorial rituals that invoke the redeeming nature of art and the infinite power of nature to always be reborn in new forms.

In an approach that combines materialism with chromatic expressionism of neo-romantic origin, the artist creates works that become independent physical topographies, true tactile landscapes, where color blends with matter and where earth, dust, or ash function not only as elements of harmonic counterpoint but especially as a fine symbolic catalyst for the entire pictorial composition.

Through this admirable capacity to orchestrate painting as an infinite field of artistic forces and energies, within a chromatic abundance organized harmoniously on the massive surfaces of the canvases, Ioan Sbârciu has carved a singular path in the history of Romanian painting.

Of great scope and consistency, his work is truly visionary, completed by the mission he has undertaken throughout his life as an innovative educator and mentor of the most reputable art school in Romania.

Ioan Sbârciu (born in 1948, Feldru, Bistrița-Năsăud) lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He graduated from the Painting department of the “Ion Andreescu” Institute of Fine Arts in 1973, and starting from 1990, he successively served as Head of the Painting Department, Dean, Rector, and President of the Senate of the University of Art and Design Cluj. He has held a PhD in visual arts since 2005 and has been the professor of all artists associated with the “Cluj School” phenomenon, from Adrian Ghenie to Victor Man, Marius Bercea, Mircea Suciu, Șerban Savu, and many others.