“In 2015, under the coordination of Cristina Popescu Russu, the ARTA magazine dedicated a broad thematic file to Romanian ceramics, including also a series of interviews with the most relevant Romanian ceramic artists. Certainly, Daniela Făiniș could not have been omitted from this series, and, on this occasion, she confessed to having “the latch of the idea of monumentality, of hidden strength in the fragility of porcelain”. This strength keeps animating the phytomorphic world of her creative universe, palpitating with life and paying homage to nature as a fundamental source of inspiration. Over 30 recent works, which are mainly floral, focusing of the aesthetic intensity of the detail, whether they render efflorescences, petals, pistils or leaves, the majority being executed in Limoges porcelain, make up the selection for the personal exhibition by Daniela Făiniș, ‘Dedication to Life’, at the Senso Gallery in Bucharest.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)

Daniela Făiniș (born 1961) is a visual artist whose experience is situated at a crossroads between sculpture, painting, graphic, tapestry and ceramics, being famous especially for the latter, for contemporary ceramics, a field in which her artistic activity includes exceptional accomplishments, such as important medals, prizes and distinctions, amongst which we mention: “Meritul cultural” as a Commander, offered by the President of Romania (Bucharest, 2004), the Gold Medal of the International Ceramics Competition of Ceramic Art city of Gualdo Tadino (Perugia, 1989,1990), Mention of Honour at the International Ceramics Festival Mino (2002, 1998, 1992) and the First Prize at the Ceramic Art Biennale (Aveiro, 1997). Her works are present in museums and collections in Belgium (the Art Collection of the European Parliament in Brussels), the USA (the Collection of the Ceramics Studio in Philadelphia), Japan (the Collection of the Foundation supporting ceramic artists from across the Ocean, Tajimi, Gifu) and Romania (the Collection of the National Contemporary Art Museum and the Cotroceni Museum). Besides, Daniela Făiniș executed the trophies of the International George Enescu Festival.

Articolul “Dedication to Life”, an exhibition by Daniela Făiniș, at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

“The current selection brings together paintings, graphic works, as well as sketches, representing the evolution of a visual artist who, just like many of his portrait characters, is a controversial character himself, sometimes appreciated, other times opposed, yet never overlooked: Paul Hitter. The juxtaposition of his self-portraits, together with a self-portrait of his Maestro, Matei Șerban Sandu, and one of ‘his Maestro’s Maestro’ – the artist’s suggestion for a tribute to mentors – aims to facilitate a better understanding of his plastic background and professional evolution. The strong contrasts from his breakthrough works, on the other hand, already hint at the fact that the intense chromatics would be playing an essential part in the style that Paul Hitter was starting to shape, and for which he is now renowned. Indeed, he is also renowned for the multiple social controversies he launches himself into, but, beyond his own understanding of freedom of expression and the consequences of the cancel culture  policies he drew upon himself, and leaving aside also the broad debate tackling the separation between the work and its author or the aesthetic autonomy, Paul Hitter remained, without a shadow of a doubt, faithful to his paining and to himself – a pretty honourable balance for an important age milestone.” (Ana Daniela Sultana)

Paul Hitter is a Romanian painter born in 1982 in Bucharest. He studied visual arts in Bucharest, under the guidance of artist Matei Șerban Sandu, as well as in Munich, within the classes of artists Nikolaus Lang, Sean Scully, and Karin Kneffel. His exhibition activity includes solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally: Bucharest, Cluj, Constanta, Prague, Marseille, Milan, Paris, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City. He created CD covers or concert posters for Gogol Bordello, Rromani Music Awards Belgrade, Rona Hartner, Koza Mostra and Fanfara Ciocârlia. Founder of the Balkan Expressionism, Paul Hitter’s works deal mainly with social topics, Balkan folk myths, folklore, legends, and urban mythologies.

Articolul “40. The Paul Hitter Retrospective”, at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

Kira Hagi’s new exhibition, “Roots”, is a special one, as it represents a symbiosis between two forms of art, painting and poetry. Kira Hagi’s painting enter into a personal and deep dialogue with the poems of Ioana Mocanu.

The opening of the vernissage for the “Roots” painting exhibition of Kira Hagi in dialogue with the poems written by Ioana Mocanu will take place on Friday, 28 October 2022, starting with 18:30, at the first floor of the Senso Gallery in Bucharest (Calea Victoriei 12C).

“Any work of art is born from emotion. In the ‘Roots’ series, the emotion expressed through the chromatics and volumetric touch of Kira Hagi is doubled by the feelings of an intense experience  put into verse by Ioana Mocanu. A insightful encounter which I invite you to witness”, said Steluța Roșca Stănescu (curator).

Passionate about everything related to art, Kira Hagi has studied Art at the International British School of Bucharest (IBSB) and has finished CIE Advanced Level Art & Design. She received a scholarship from the New York Film Academy, and three years later, she graduated in Acting for Film. Kira Hagi considers that the time spent in Los Angeles was the most creative period of her life, as she would paint weekly tens of paintings. After that, she realized that painting is a form of therapy, which helped her survive homesickness and longing for her family.

“I left my country thinking what any other young person thinks, chasing the dream of making it where others don’t even dare, believing that ‘in another country’, one may find the meaning of life on earth, that there will be a story just like in the movies (that is how I imagined it with my youthful eyes, protected by my family).

Four years later, tons of unsuccessful auditions, a few theatre projects, in which I started to put down roots, standing ovations, new entourages, a lot of new friends, but also lots of nights of longing made me have a personal epiphany: in fact, it doesn’t really exist an uprooting, because there will always remain a few roots in the ground, that will take the first opportunity and will come to life again.

The first chance I got, I came back to the country, and part of my new roots remained across the ocean, but it is all for the best, I will always be ‘home’ on two continents. And speaking of the resilience of nature, I received the gift of friendship from a person who was able to be born again, after a year of not getting up from the bed, needing to learn again to walk, after a painful loss in the family. It took a couple of years of fighting. This new reality, but she accepted that pain will be part of her life. Through her eyes, her art, and especially her words, I started to express myself through painting.

At only 28 years old, Ioana Mocanu is an artist, without any diploma, but one who creates as any artist does, or should do: from the heart. Without mercantile interests, without targets related to a lavish future, in the spotlight. Ioana, from my point of view, is a discovery that changes lives through the power of example, and which inspires through a creative enthusiasm and profound sensibility. Because of her, and her strength, this new collection of works came into being, which I invite you to see at the Senso Gallery”, said Kira Hagi.

At only 28 years old, the young artist Ioana Mocanu has lived enough experiences for two lifetimes, as such, her abilities are stretching into various fields, and the impact she has upon those who see her works of art is always momentous.

“I started writing as therapy for my thought and experiences, which, sometimes, I was feeling too strongly. When writing, I was freeing the emotions like in a secret diary that words were carrying, with their meanings, their feelings, their longing… What inspired me profoundly in Kira Hagi’s works was the meaning in itself of the “roots”, as an anchor for the self, which two years before, I felt I was loosing. Because of an accident, I went through a period in which, confined to a bed, I felt like my own feet were uprooting.

The “coincidence” was that my Father went somewhere higher than we are in the same day as the accident, and this was the reason, in fact, why my roots started to feel like loosing any kind of identity. The year in which I was confined to a bed was the year I started painting, writing, reading more than ever, learned to play the guitar, on my back… anything that helped me give some words to my silences from back then, through any means of expression. Now I understand that my roots are, probably, somewhere in Heaven, next to my Father, because I couldn’t explain in any other way how a friendship of this many years with an angel like Kira brought us here, today, together”, said the young artist Ioana Mocanu.

Articolul The “Roots” art exhibition by Kira Hagi in dialogue with the poems of Ioana Mocanu, at the Senso Gallery in Bucharest apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

“Edith Torony created and developed her own artistic practice at a confluence between the figurative and the abstract, her style being recognizable thanks to the energic and intense chromatics (for instance, she uses neon colours) and to elements inspired by pop-art, which she inserts on fantastic backgrounds. Without specifically trying to frame her painting style within one artistic movement or another, the present selection – which, actually, represents the climax of an entire creation stage – might remind of (pop)surrealism. Therefore, in all the displayed works, we encounter some sort of map of a dream, where all the symbolistic is placed as if it were a tarot card, rather than in a sequential-cinematographic style. Regarding the themes she approaches, Edith Torony makes recourse to ‘dialects of the universal symbolic language’, to quote Erich Fromm in relation to that forgotten language of dreams, fairytales and myths, meaning that the artist’s works can be interpreted in different keys, according to the personal experience of each member of the audience. Should we, however, name a distinctive, recurring element, belonging to the artist’s imaginary, which we plentifully find in the exhibition selection, which would be fire. Of course, there would also be clouds, black and white squares, and black and red stripes, placed in a parallel or radial fashion, but fire is the most strongly represented, and, in Edith Torony’s vision, means transformation, recovery, reconstruction.” – Ana Daniela Sultana

Articolul “Incandescent”, a new exhibition by Edith Torony, at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

“The current event happened through an organic process. Our group has functioned for a few years, under the guide of the teaching and learning act. Now there is nothing that holds us together anymore, or perhaps just the memories, heavy with fear of fading away. This is why this event was born instinctively, almost losing its educational nature. We can see that it is not time or rules that decide the duration of human relationships, but the wish of not putting an end to a purposeful act. Therefore, it is a twitch against an unavoidable separation. Our research has been achieved in the same key. The product itself is ephemeral, almost imperceptible and lacking structure or backbone. Just like a Sisyphean work, destroyed, in our case, by one single wave or gust of wind, what remains solid are purpose, thought, determination and science. It is a sentimental demonstration, concluded in a rational way. These are proofs of our wishes to control and understand things that out pass one’s logic. For us, the time to believe in the rule that amends the feeling has come.” (Ion Anghel – Artist, Curator and Professor)

“With the «Sand Castles» («Castele de nisip») exhibition project, initiated by Ion Anghel, we continue the series of collaborations with renowned Romanian curators as guests in the Senso Gallery programme. The previous event, curated by Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu, represented a real success concerning the inflow of new artists and artworks in the gallery’s portfolio, as well as the diversity of the gallery’s public, and last year, the collective exhibition «Desemne de peste an» («Designations from across the Year») collected artworks signed by Graphics students from the Faculty of Plastic Arts, UNArte Bucharest, coordinated by their year coordinator, Professor Dr. Anca Boeriu. However, the true success of this series would be the fact that, by working with mentors from the field of visual arts (Ion Anghel, Anca Boeriu and Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu are some of the artists who, in the good educational tradition, handle their younger colleagues’ exhibition activity, apart from their own), we can really contribute to the moulding of new generations of artists, offering them the opportunity to exhibit, which is so necessary during the first step on the artistic path. Moreover, Ion Anghel accompanies his students in creative camps, «Sand Castles» («Castele de nisip») being the product of such an initiative, conducted during one week of this summer, in the Danube Delta, in Sf. Gheorghe. The exhibition, which has Ion Anghel, Ioana Badea, Robert-Alexandru Burdușel, Ada Jugănaru, Sabina-Elena Legănaru and Ana-Ruxandra Pascu as protagonists, is conceived as a meeting between a University Professor and his former students, a meeting which, surprisingly, does not result in painting.” (Ana Daniela Sultana – Curator of the Senso Gallery)

Articolul “Sand Castles” („Castele de nisip”), educational and authorship project at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

“When summer draws to an end, at the Senso Gallery, at the same time with the vast and eclectic “Clouds & I Clouds” group exhibition, curated by Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu on the first floor, another collective exhibition is taking place on the ground floor, dedicated this time to the arts of fire, which brings together the works of Dan Băncilă, Liviu Brezeanu, Lucian Butucariu, Dinu Câmpeanu, Daniela Făiniș, Denis Nanciu, Aniela Ovadiuc and Cristian Pentelescu. If, on the first floor, the artistic practices and plastic art techniques are one of the most avant-garde pieces (we can see, for example, an installation made by Beaver, in which the artist spectacularly blends painting and virtual reality), on the ground floor, the selection of the exhibition relies mostly on traditional methods for the artistic expression: ceramics (Aniela Ovadiuc), porcelain (Daniela Făiniș), patterned glass (Lucian Butucariu), wood or bronze sculptures (Dan Băncilă, Liviu Brezeanu, Dinu Câmpeanu and Cristian Pentelescu). Regardless of the floor, innovation and originality are at home. Even if most of the artists participating in the “Arts of Fire” exhibition are already renowned – not only for the audience of the gallery, but for that of the contemporary art in general – we also encounter a revelation: Denis Nanciu, representative of the younger generation (born in 1999), graduate student at UNArte, Department of Ceramics – Glass – Metal, an artist who takes part in the exhibition with a sculptural object made of glass and metal, bearing a message (being a bag) that may reference the paradigm of consumerism or the ecological discourse.” – Ana Daniela Sultana, curator

Articolul Arts of Fire, group exibition at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

Articolul “Clouds & I Clouds” – group exibition at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

“What’s the carbon footprint of a burger’s production? Is sustainability (or sustainable development, as it is also called) still possible nowadays, without making recourse to some radical transformations of consumer societies, or we simply cannot avoid a certain type of capitalist hedonism which leads to excess, resource waste, pollution and other consequences impacting climate change? Apart from the negative effects it encompasses, the new paradigm generated by the pandemic and the current political and economic tensions, however, seems to have its own advantages, one of them being precisely the questionning of the constant increase in productivity and overproduction. The burgers in the artworks by Maria Pop Timaru and Megan Dominescu give us such food for thought. On the other hand, Maria Pop Timaru’s frosted ceramics, where the overlapping layers of ingredients deliciously shine, remind us of the famous Big Kahuna or Royale with Cheese lines, from “Pulp Fiction”, Tarantino’s cult movie. At the same time, the sequence illustrated by Megan Dominescu using textile thread (her artistic practice is called “rug hooking”), in an artwork where a dog on a leash is heading straight towards a burger, expresses a gut craving for fast food. An ethical ambivalence, but a definite aesthetical delight!” – Ana Daniela Sultana

Articolul “Notes on a post-consumerist landscape” – capsule exhibition at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

“Belonging to the world of the ineffable, abstract painting – which, since its appearance in modernism, has represented a cause for controversy thanks to its radicalism and subversion – nowadays may seem, once again, in relationship to the current tendencies in contemporary art, when digitalization and politicization dictate the norm, an almost iconoclastic strategy, This exhibition explores different valences of contemporary abstract painting, certainly without claiming to cover all of them exhaustively. Therefore, we encounter four different tendencies: towards gestural abstraction from Sabina Legănaru, op art from Florentina Otari, chromatic experiments from Augustin Răzvan Radu, and conceptual art from Constantin Rusu.

If for Augustin Răzvan Radu the stake is color, for Florentina Otari, Sabina Legănaru and Constantin Rusu the creation process takes precedence.

This is why making the selection was at the same time a delight and a challenge, especially because the works – which are representative for the artistic practice and well-defined style of each artist – leave a lot of room for interpretation. So, let the free game of imagination begin!” – Ana Daniela Sultana

Articolul 4 tendencies in Contemporary Abstract Painting, at the Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.

The exhibition “Once, on the far side of yesterday” presents the homonym in-situ installation made by Paul Barbu on the gallery floor in the period preceding the opening and can be visited between April 28 and May 28, 2022, from Monday to Saturday, from 12.00 to 19.00. Curated by Ana Daniela Sultana, the project is part of the visual arts programme conceived by Ana Ștefania Andronic (BUZU), artistic director of the exhibition space.

„«Once, on the far side of yesterday», the in-situ installation of the artist Paul Barbu, introduces us in a timeless and spatial setting governed by the dialogue between materials prevailing over an exhibition discourse prone to politicization, rather focusing its message on the construction process. With its polystyrene ball dunes, the work is configured as a utopian diorama, as a scenographic composition or as a landscape« to the sea and to the sun», to use even the artist’s words, in a way that can be assumed, being an eminently ephemeral artistic gesture. At the same time« Once, on the far side of yesterday» it is also a genuine foray into the artistic practice of Paul Barbu, a practice at the confluence of sculpture, installation and site-specific interventions , obviously influenced by his  architectural background (and by creators such as Carlo Scarpa, Tadao Ando, Santiago Calatrava or Alvaro Siza) ”– Ana Daniela Sultana

Articolul “Once, on the far side of yesterday”, in-situ installation on the upper floor of Senso Gallery apare prima dată în Galeria Senso.