Zoltán Béla b. 1977
Zoltan Béla (b. 1977) graduated from the University of Arts and Design in Cluj becoming best known for his hyper-realistic paintings with influences from the Cluj School of painting. Several years ago, he took the decision to shift his artistic practice towards experimentation, scrutinizing the limits between figurative and abstract painting, object making and installation. The artist now lives and works in Bucharest, where he explores the urban landscape of rust, patterns and textures – mapping out a fragmented history of human habitation in Eastern Europe. His latest series layers heavy textures inspired by remnants of old gates, walls and doors unto fragile surfaces of acrylic on paper. Their essential ambiguity encourages allusions, which range from the metaphysics of the fragment to questions of evanescence and memory.
Béla’s paintings bear the mark of antithesis, sometimes as a therapy to purge inner fears, sometimes as a mirror of reality. Their essential ambiguity encourages allusions, which range from the metaphysics of the fragment to questions of evanescence and memory. The artist often brings into play disturbing mise en scènes that question the fragile boundary between reality and fiction, materiality and incorporeality, immobility and motion, invisibility and absence. The representation of time is the very essence of his work – the air seems to contain it, recording the memory of its ephemeral traces and inducing a state of both contemplation and alertness.
His purified and mysterious visual universe pays particular attention to composition, light and contrasts and explores the depth of the details, rather than the effect of the whole and the solitude of the human being, while facing the after-effects of a historical turn.
Solo Shows
Zoom, Új Kriterion Galéria, Miercurea Ciuc, Romania
Art at the window (guest-artist), Simeza Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
L’espace ventriloque, Anca Poterașu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
Installation, The National Museum of Contemporary Art Anexa, Bucharest, Romania
Traces, Anca Poteraşu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
In meditation: Feeling the Silence, Anca Poteraşu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
A certain time, a certain place, a certain state, Little Yellow Studio, Bucharest, Romania
Self Reflecting 30, Point Contemporary Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
Transition Icons, Carini & Donatini Gallery, Italy
Car Wreck, Sadaba, Estonia
Group Shows
AnimaL, Diptych Art Space, Anca Poterasu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
Galbenul intens și alte pete de culoare rezistente la sens, Bistrița Museum, Romania
Winter Celebration, Anca Poterasu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
AD-HOC, Új Kriterion Galéria, Miercurea-Ciuc, Romania
Colonia Pictorilor, Baia Mare artistic centre, RO (The Painters’ Colony is over a hundred-years old institution shaping the Baia Mare school of painting, one of the most important XXth century Romanian artistic movements, comprising artists from all over Europe such as Richard Gerst, Leo Kober Károly Ferenczy, Arthur Verona)
Black and White Biennial, Satu Mare, Romania
The Privileged Eye, (with Matei Bejenaru, Róbert Köteles), Vienna Contemporary, International Art Fair, Vienna, Austria (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
The Map Is Not the Territory, The Romanian Cultural Institute, Lisbon, Portugal
Simpatie și semnificație, curator: Anca Mihuleț, National Romanian Library, Bucharest, Romania
Werkschau Spinnerei Gallery Tour, Leipzig Spinnerei Galleries, Germany
EXTENSION.RO, curators: Dan Popescu, Yana Smurova , Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia
Vom Allmächtigen zum Leibhaftigen, curator: Tom Beege, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Apolda/Thuringia, Germany
Multicultural Art Walk, Romania
The Politics of Green and Ruins, Volta12 Basel, Switzerland (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
Timisoara Biennial Art Encounters, Timisoara, Romania
BB6, Curator Gergo Horvath, PAVILION center for contemporary art and culture / Combinatul Fondului Plastic / The Romanian Peasant Museum, Bucharest, Romania
Vienna International Art Fair (ViennaFair), Vienna, Austria (With Anca Poterasu Gallery)
The New Contemporary, ViennaFair 2013 (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
Curators Network, Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania
Contemporary Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
The New Figurative, Victoria Art Centre, Bucharest, Romania
Coloring the Grey, The 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Russia
Preview Berlin, Germany
I Am a Romanian: The Bucharest – Tel Aviv Route, Israel
Art Moscow – World Fine Art Fair, Moscow, Russia (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
Preview Berlin – The Emerging Art Fair, Berlin, Germany (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
Out Of Sacred (with Andres Serrano, Shirin Neshat, Kehinde Wiley, Bruno Zanichelli, Ciprian Mureşan), Arezzo, Italy
Police the Police, The 4th Bucharest Biennial of Young Artists, Bucharest, Romania
The Berlin Wall – Promenade Gallery, Vlore, Albania
Global Art Local History #1 – Top 4 Terrorist Attacks with the most victims, preview space Nasui Gallery, Bucharest, Romania