Art Movements Foundation Award

"Ada Muntean, Adrian Ghiman, and Diana Serghiuță are the three artists present in the Scemtovici & Benowitz gallery space at the MoBU 2024 Art Fair. They are laureates of the national drawing award Contemporary Drawing in Romania 2023, a competition organized by the Art Movements Foundation and the S&B Gallery in partnership with ALERT Studio. Although young, the artists are already established, and their presence in the gallery space adds value, especially since, alongside drawing, they also exhibit painting, another important discipline in their creation.

Drawing, in its contemporary acceptance, is an essential component in the artistic practice of the three present in the gallery’s display. Whether they studied and work in Cluj, like Ada Muntean and Adrian Ghiman, or Timișoara, like Diana Serghiuță, and despite their different ages, backgrounds, and concerns, the three artists practice a form of figurative art that is personal and recognizable for each of them.

In her fragments of human representations, Ada Muntean reflects, through sensitively valued images in black and white and created in a (neo)academic style with charcoal and graphite on paper or acrylic colors on canvas, on the place that anatomy (of the artist?) occupies in frames populated (sensually) by people, in the space within the interstices of the ribcage, in dreams and in the world.

Diana Serghiuță, in her works created in colored pencil on paper and acrylic on canvas, expresses herself contemplatively, without explicit emotional attachments. In (self)portraits, with eyes wide shut, or conversely, through scrutinizing eyes, cut out from human representations, the artist practices a philosophical introspection through a state of calm and serenity. And a translucent snake situated between sky and earth fills the space of the painting’s frame, of life, making the air, light, plants, and our perception vibrate.

Adrian Ghiman opposes the world and its decency with images that impact almost to the point of shock, porno-gore anatomies, as well-drawn as they are, using proportion precisely and meticulously, knowing the anatomy of the human body, perspective, and composition in both a classical and contemporary sense! His art is fascinatingly macabre, captivating to the point of losing oneself among the sinuous lines and color spots that represent the shadows of man and his madness, in dreams or in waking, following a conceptual line akin to the narrative of Hieronymus Bosch.

Each drawing artist speaks through their art in a unique, recognizable way, and their artistic proposals express novel, original concerns.

The selection of works from the creations of the three out of the four laureates of the contemporary drawing award initiated in 2023 - with the ambition to become annual - was made by Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu - visual artist and independent curator, at the invitation of the young gallery Scemtovici & Benowitz, with the aim of promoting its activity."

- Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu