…the people, place, history, and folk characteristics that fuel the artist’s creative mind most trenchantly are those that can be localized to Maramures – the small, relatively remote village where he grew up in the Carpathian Mountains, in Transylvania. Although the artist has been based in much more populous cosmopolitan settings like Bucharest and New York City for several decades, he has regularly traveled back to his hometown, and to many other locations in Romania, for several months a year, not only to spend time with family and friends, but also to make work, mount exhibitions, and examine ever more deeply the terrain and traditions of his places of origin. A sense of quietude and timelessness, and of a nearly unabated resistance to the vicissitudes of history, is a key factor in Gorzo’s interests here, as is a sense of simplicity, humility, and virtuous, intractable belonging.

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In the artist’s work, representation and abstraction converge, and distinctions between real and imaginary fall asunder. […] Life in the mountains might be both physically demanding and existentially taxing, but it is also full of strange occurrences, vivid dreams, dramatic phenomena, magical encounters, fanciful stories, and myriad matters of joy, superstition, fear, and allure. 

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Scufița Magenta, by GORZO
/SAC @ MALMAISON, 16.02-12.04.2023
Exhibition design: Justin Baroncea & Maria Ghement
Set-design production: Atelier SET
An exhibition organised by /SAC
Forme noi, by GORZO
Comenduirea Garnizoanei Timișoara, 26.10.2022-26.01.2023
© 2023 /SAC Bucharest & Vellant Publishing House

Author: Paul D’Agostino
Photos: Adi Bulboacă
Graphic design: Raymond Bobar
Editor: Alex Radu