Anca Branzas
In his works, Simion Cernica uses any medium or discourse necessary to express his conceptual position and formal exploration. He develops his practice by researching recent history and the current socio-political and cultural energies. While questioning our approved cultural perspectives, he aims to challenge the way we perceive our reality, cultural history and how we advance our precarious humanity. His art preserves an ‘arte povera’ dynamic and disseminates a poetic yet subversive drive.
Recently he has returned to the ‘painting’ medium as his main studio practice. His paintings are material thoughts, language exploration with physical tools; they are an investigation into new ways of painting. Anchored in today’s visual and conceptual challenges, the works keep an open dialog with the 20th century avant-garde. Made of fragile poetic matter, they are purposely exposed to the toxicity of our contemporary reality. The paintings are a raw yet conceptually purified manifest of the artist’s presence and a tumultuous quest for universal truth.
Simion Cernica was born in 1973 in Bucharest, Romania and currently works and lives in Los Angeles. His works and projects have been exhibited internationally at Art Encounters Foundation, Timișoara; Jaus Gallery, Los Angeles; Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles; Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR), Budapest, Hungary; Europe House, The Hague, The Netherlands; Expanded Space, Bucharest; ODD, Bucharest; Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome; Timișoara Biennial; National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest; MAGMA, Sf. Gheorghe; Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest; ‘photo LA’, Los Angeles; HAU, Berlin; Matadero, Madrid; Atelier 35, Bucharest; UQBAR, Berlin; National Dance Center, Bucharest; The Knot, Public Art Project Germany/ Romania; Romanian Cultural Institute, Venice, among others.
