Art in Conversation
with Cristian Graure
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cristian Graure [born on the 1th of January 1984]
Cristian is a contemporary artist who currently lives and works in Timisoara [RO]. He became interested in Arts starting from an early age, though later studies at the West University of Arts and Design, where he obtained the BA degree in Visual Arts. In 2017 he was granted the title of Doctor [PhD] at the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, for a research topic dedicated to theory and history of photography in Central Europe and Western Romania. Currently, he is an Associate Lecturer at the West University of Arts and Design Timisoara.
His works in mixed media and photography fuse the personal style and technique developed over the past 12 years, through a naturalistic rendering associated with a restricted palette and in some cases with dramatic lighting to offer a narrative that is simultaneously seductive and subversive.
From his subjects and approach to the glimmers of light and reflections captured in his works, Cristian associates photography with introspective dream scenarios that reveal vulnerability and sensitivity. His images highlight the fusions between shape and emotion, rendered through a partially abstracted or minimalist style that invites viewers to explore and dwell in the nuances of his artistic world.
CRISTIAN GRAURE
Visual Artist | Romania
Artist Statement
As an artist and especially as a photographer, I often revive as being in the state of conciliation whose role is to partake in a subtle negotiation in the relationship between the space and time of creation.
I like to believe that both my works and photographs represent a search for this equilibrium, from the perspective of the “photographic universe” in which we live, valid for the relationships we establish individually with the images. In terms of photography, this meaning translates through the intimate relation created as an artist with the medium, which then flows towards the public, into the collective memory.
Reflecting on the "synchronicity" with photography, I think it had occurred in time, starting from the nature of my personality, a somehow analytic one. I enjoyed and still do, observing and study the life of forms in nature. A fundamental role had certainly my childhood and the people around me. At some point, probably a photographic object caught my attention in this sense, from then a sequence of emotional states was created. I found in that photo the tangible connections that evoked redundant memories of these observations, and at the same time, I think they awaken the desire to preserve those moments.
Later on, I realized that this empirical desire to keep had nothing to do with material things, but rather with those close to me. I like to think that those moments have remained with me and that they became the shapes of memories from which I “build” my photos and the works made in other creative mediums. It is probably a subconscious way of exploring possible answers to the equally fundamental question of one's place in the world.
From this perspective and as "performer" in this game of understanding, these visual expressions are characteristic for the representation through its final form, yet, the most meaningful part is the gestural essence of creation, the one through which the artist must identify himself, through the pure sincerity of his ideas ...
ACTIVITY
Related to his research activities regarding photography and technological approaches, Cristian is known for his contributions and publications dedicated to the development and history of photography for which he collaborated with institutions in Romania, Austria, Germany, Hungary.
His artistic activity generated works in solo exhibitions and group exhibitions and has been the subject of interviews and tv shows for the past ten years.
EXHIBITIONS
2017 – VOLATILE. From Flexible to Semantic Memories – SOLO Photo Exhibition at Rauminhalt Gallery in Halle - Leipzig [DE]
2017 – A4/ International Salon for Small Graphics at Art Gallery Robevci in Ohrid [MK] & Shumen University [BG]
2018 – Broken Pixel – Alternative Photography Exhibition form the Art Residency in Slovenia [RO-SI]
2018 – Anual Artists Salon – National Museum of Art Timisoara [RO]
2019 – Experimental Photography Exhibition at Pygmalion Gallery [RO]
2019 – Alternative Photographic Techniques at Adetim Gallery-Theresia Bastion [RO]
2019 – MELANCHOLY. In the Aftermath of Love – 4 Artist Mixed-Media Exhibition at Casa cu Iedera Timisoara [RO]
2020 – AFTER][IMAGE – SOLO Photo & Mixed-Media Exhibition at the International Photography Festival AnalogMania [RO-SI]
2020 – RestART Society – Small group exhibition at Casa cu Iedera Timisoara [RO]
2020-2021 – PAIDEA I – Exhibition of the Professors from the West University of Arts Timisoara at Calpe Gallery [RO]