Eduard Andrei

About

Date and place of birth: October 22, 1971, Constantza, Romania.
Lecturer in European Art History, Romanian Art History, and Painting Techniques at Ovidius University of Constantza, Department of Visual Arts.
Member of Romanian Fine Artists Association.

I consider my paintings to be on the edge between tradition and post-modernity: operating with the traditional means of painting, I often use two types of collage: in a postmodern key, the collage of citations from previous art, on the one hand, and the collage of various materials, on the other hand, but avoiding the excesses which sometimes characterize contemporary art.
One of the recurrent motifs of my work is the tower, seen from various perspectives, but with the same symbolic value: the artists secluded tower in a world which seems both uninhabited and inhospitable; a vertical bridge between sky and earth with religious undertones; a magic axiom of verticality.
The animals which sometimes populate the abstracted settings of the paintings, interpreted in an expressionistic key, find their source of inspiration in a domestic reality and talk to the anguishes of a defamiliarized world, in which the animalistic cry becomes the collective echo of parallel personal dramas. At the same time, I am interested in the repertory of current street art, children’s drawings, video games and manga, and advertising, which I visually “manipulate” in order to question what can or cannot be consumed, as well as who or what can become a commodity. My latest paintings depict hybrid figures - half-human, half-animal - inspired by my personal experience of a (post-)totalitarian sociopolitical context.

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Location: Currently based in New York, NY / Constanta , Romania

Education

2006-2011 National University of Arts - Bucharest, Romania - Ph.D. in Art History. Late 19th century and early 20th century Christian mural painting and architecture in the Dobrudjan, Romanian, and European contexts – between identity and alterity;
2002-2004 Tunis University, Fine Arts Institute - Tunisia - M.A. in Sciences et Techniques des Arts;
1991-1997 National Academy of Art - Bucharest, Romania - B.A. from the Visual Arts Department, Painting Section.
Solo Art Shows: 2011-Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, USA (haiga exhibition with Sonia Coman; 2008-Palace Art Gallery, Constantza, Romania; 2007-Novotel City Centre, Bucharest, Romania; 2000-Romanian Fine Artists Association Gallery, Mamaia, Romania; 1999-Interarte Center, Constantza, Romania; 1995-Friedrich Schiller Cultural Institute, Bucharest, Romania.
Selected Group Art Shows: 2011-Peter Louis Gallery, New York, NY, USA; Chelsea Room, New York, NY, USA; 2009-Exhibition of the Fine Artists Association-Constantza, organized in Trojan, Bulgaria; 2008-Exhibition of Romanian Artists, Rotary District Conference, Southport, UK; Constantza Art Gallery, Romania; Exhibition-installation "Sourcebook", Carpenter Center, Harvard College, MA, USA; 2006-National Art Salon-Parliament, Constantin Brancusi Hall, Bucharest, Romania; 2003-Galerie Mille Feuilles-La Marsa, Tunisia; Palais Essaada-La Marsa, Tunisia; 2000-International Salon of Small Engravings-Carbunari, Romania.
Fine Arts Awards: 1997-UNESCO Prize, Romanian Commission's Poster Contest, Costinesti, Romania; 1996-1997-Mattis-Teutsch Scholarship, the National Academy of Art, Bucharest, Romania; 1995-The Award of the Fine Artists Association, the Young Artists Contest Dominus 95, Bucharest, Romania. … Read More