Dreams and Hopes is Victor Răcătău’s first solo exhibition in China, where both old and new works are showcased to give an overview of the artist’s practice over the past decade. Răcătău is one of the main representative artists of the Cluj School in Romania, which has been steadily gaining extensive recognition both locally and internationally in recent years. What distinguishes the Cluj School from other contemporary movements is its specific post-communist aesthetics of natural realism. While the grey tones symbolize the essence of quotidian life and the struggles to overcome the post-communist morass, Răcătău's paintings are also imbued with surreal and absurd elements, as well as the artist’s strongly personalized symbolism.

Victor Racatau, In Each of Our Desire 2010, oil on canvas, 34 x 52 cm

Victor Racatau, (Little) Anima Mundi 2010, oil on canvas, 20 x 27 cm

Victor Racatau, Absolution 2010; oil on canvas, 30x40 cm

Born in 1967, Victor Răcătău completed both under-graduate and post-graduate studies at the Cluj University of Art and Design, making him in many ways a quintessential exponent of the so-called "Cluj School".

The inscrutability of fate and hazardous nature of chance is a dominant theme in his work. Labyrinths and maps also occur frequently, used by Răcătău to represent the attempted ordering of psychological and historical space. Confronted by his subjects with trepidation and uncertainty, the demands for definitive decision-making that such structured demarcations infer often appear overwhelming. Combining brooding grisaille with instances of intensely luminous colour, Răcătău's chromatic schema serve as a literal rendition of metaphorical light within darkness; the flickering brilliance of insight and possibility glimpsed from within a dark cloud of unknowing.

About the exhibition

Dates: 15 Jun - 18 Aug 2013

Venue: C-Space

Address: Red No.1 - C1 & C2, Cao Changdi Chaoyang District Beijing 100015, China

Tel: +86 10 51273248 FAX: +86 10 51273249

Courtesy of the artist and C-Space.