Adela Giurgiu (b. 1990) returns almost obsessively to a set of themes that populate her painterly studio and which, when viewed together, seem to outline a universe marked by alienation, doubling, isolation, and reverie—all intensified by the tensions of the spaces in which they are situated. The motif of the shadow may suggest both the Jungian archetype and a metaphor of time, seemingly drawn from the writings of Haruki Murakami on atemporal worlds and subterranean planes, where the shadow can be cut out at the boundary between reality and fiction.
Adela Giurgiu’s paintings (the series You and Your Shadow, Lost but Found, Apparition, among others) contribute to a dialogue with the predilect themes of Ioana Bătrânu, nurturing the same solitary and oppressive atmosphere, in which only imagination can carve small openings of light and, perhaps through repetition, restore the fundamental role of visual knowledge.
Xanthe Burdett (b. 1995) is an artist from Devon living and working in London. Her practice is led by painting but also encompasses drawing and installation. She graduated from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2024, and received her BA in Education, English and Drama at Cambridge University.
My work is concerned with the body in nature and the question of the body as nature. Through a personal mythology deeply rooted in place I am entangling bodies and stories into layered works where the line between the human and non-human wavers and stretches. The works, moving between extreme scales, push and pull as strange creatures rise to the surface through the layers of glazing.
I think of my practice as a mesh, my paintings existing within a web extending outwards. One thread to the monumental hunting tapestries in the V&A, another to the way light dances across the fallen tree on the riverbank I grew up on. Paintings from museums, the way I felt when I first saw Ana Mendieta’s photographs after I heard the story of her death, the long cool shadows in the woods. - Artists Statement
Péter Jecza (b. 1939 - d. 2009), renowned nationally and internationally, is regarded as a pioneer in contemporary Romanian sculpture. His body of work, comprising over 1200 cataloged pieces, explores a wide spectrum of sculptural styles.
Born on October 16, 1939, in Sfântu Gheorghe, Covasna, Romania, Peter Jecza graduated from the "Ion Andreescu" Academy of Arts in Cluj in 1963. He is a member of the Fine Arts Union of Romania and has served as a professor at the Academy of Arts in Timișoara.
His work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions across Europe, including Wuppertal, Bucharest, Berlin, Zürich, Düsseldorf, Basel, Mannheim, and Timișoara, among others, between 1972 and 1996. Internationally, he has participated in notable events such as the Barcelona Biennial (1975), and multiple editions of the “Dante” Biennial in Ravenna (1975–1987), as well as in group exhibitions with the "R.B.K." Group in Wuppertal from 1973 to 1986.
