TUDOR OLTEAN

Tudor Oltean’s exhibition It all started with a drawing is one of a series of studio-exhibitions through which Quadro 21 Gallery is displaying the current stage of development and interests of a number of young artists.Visitors encountering the works of Tudor Oltean are confronted with three areas of expressive art: diagram, sculpture/object, and charcoal drawing. The artist’s preoccupations in terms of form are affected by his interest in particular developments in society. Whereas in the past he situated himself as a passive recorder of daily events, the works we have here are a subjective response to the reality of an isolated environment, that of violence and prisons. Displayed without an intermediary, the works pull the exhibition space in around them to create an installation, using it as an immediate support. Geometrical motifs drawn in charcoal come to configure a codified visual language that resembles a board game, with a role or a rule matching each form or formula. Thus, we can identify the players: the victim, the person punished, the person who imposes the punishment, and the punishment itself, but the power relationships are left open.

Diana Roșca

Tudor Oltean, born in Gilău, Romania in 1993, lives and works in Cluj-Napoca. He completed a Master’s programme in the Ceramics, Glass and Metal department of the Decorative Arts and Design Faculty of Cluj University of Art and Design in 2017. His exhibition Black Market was held at Launloc in the same year, and in 2019 he took part in the group exhibition From the belly of a circle comes out a square at MATCA.