Zona Maco

Radu Oreian was born in 1984 in Tarnaveni, Romania. He currently works and lives in France. He awarded his first degree in 2005 at the University of Art and Design of Cluj-Napoca and he continued his studies at National University of Art of Bucharest where he graduated in 2007. Radu Oreian’s practice has at its core the classical mediums of drawing and painting and explores the way history, ancient myths and archives shape our society and our understanding of humanity. His ‘Molecular Painting’ are a miniature-like format of works that pulsate with details and thus intend to draw the viewer’s eye deeper and deeper into the fabric of the paint and hopefully deeper and deeper into the nature and meaning of painting. The red thread that runs through Radu Oreian’s works is creating a new, meditative visual imprint of a peculiar density that appears to exist in a pulsing state of tension and relaxation. Radu Oreian has been the protagonist of several solo-shows: SVIT Gallery, Befriending the memory muscle (Prague, 2020, with Ciprian Mureşan), Gallery Nosco, Microsripts and Melted Matters (London, 2019), Gallery ISA, Farewell To The Thinker of Thoughts (Mumbai, 2018). Among his institutional projects: La Fondazione, Project Room (Roma, 2020, solo-show), The Last Agora, Plan B Foundation (Cluj-Napoca, 2019) and Chasseur d’Images, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris, 2019). Among his group shows: One in a million, Gallery Nosco (Marseille, 2018) and On The Sex of Angels, Nicodim Gallery (Bucarest, 2017).

Chris Soal (b. 1994) is a South African artist whose critically acclaimed sculptural practice—shaped by a Johannesburg upbringing and now based in Cape Town—has garnered international recognition for its innovative engagement with materiality, perception, and place.

Soal’s studio-based practice is sculptural in its output, working with objects and materials in ways that show not only a conceptual engagement with the contexts and histories of the objects but also reinforce the body as a site for knowledge reception and production. His works seek to make a poetic statement through the simplest of means, engaging the viewer’s spatial awareness and perceptual habits while challenging core societal preconceptions of value and hierarchy.

Through his use of discarded and mundane ephemera, such as toothpicks and bottle caps, along with concrete, rebar, electric fencing cable, sandpaper, and other industrial materials, the artist intuitively develops the familiar to the point of the uncanny. Soal’s works can be considered as a social abstraction, deeply rooted in and reflective of his upbringing in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Working symbiotically with his materials, Soal utilizes the inherent physical characteristics of the objects to transform them through processes of aggregation, combination, and erosion—seeking to foreground pressing ecological concerns by repositioning the viewer as an active agent within the contemporary environment. Despite the artificiality of his materials, his process allows them to take on biomorphic qualities or evoke natural phenomena, expressing his interest in their phenomenological qualities.

Mateusz Choróbski was born in Radomsko, Poland in 1987. He graduated from the University of the Arts in Poznań and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

Choróbski’s art practice is characterized by an astute observation of the surrounding reality and the ability to draw on its selected aspects to create visual compositions defying convention. The artist works across a variety of mediums and imaging techniques, including video, installation, performance and sculpture. His multisensory pieces are embedded within a vast iconographic and conceptual framework, often inspired by mundanity and what dictates it (everyday objects, ordinary materials, natural organisms). Paramount to Choróbski’s practice is the notion of space as well as its physical and cognitive perception.

Selected individual exhibitions: Contemporary Art Gallery in Opole (2021), Eduardo Secci in Florence (2020), La Fondazione in Rome (2019), Galeria Labirynt in Lublin (2019), Wschód Gallery in Warsaw (2019), Les Bains Douches in Alençon (2017), Kronika Centre for Contemporary Art in Bytom (2016), another vacant space in Berlin (2013). Selected group exhibitions: The Museum of Pallazo Mocenio in Venice (2022); RISO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Palermo (2021), Le Scalze in Naples (2021), Villa Medici: The French Academy in Rome (2019), Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona (2017), the European Biennial of Contemporary Art Manifesta 11 in Zürich (2016).

Daria Dmytrenko (1993, Dnipropetrovsk, Ucraina) vive e lavora a Venezia. Dopo la prima formazione artistica a Dnipropetrovsk, ha frequentato i corsi di pittura presso l’Accademia Nazionale di Arti Visive e Architettura di Kiev (2012-15) e si è diplomata all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia nel 2021. Attraverso la pittura, l’artista esplora l’espressione visiva del subconscio, utilizzando gli impulsi intuitivi come strumento per far emergere i ricordi più profondi e trasformarli in composizione. Tra le mostre in cui sono state esposte le sue opere: Journey to the center of the mind, Stems (Paris, 2024) What’s behind the gloom, Setareh (Düsseldorf, 2023), Degree Show II, Palazzo Monti (Brescia, 2021); Extraordinario, Vulcano agenzia VEGA (Venezia, 2020); 103ma Collettiva Giovani Artisti, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Galleria Piazza San Marco (Venezia, 2020); Spin Off, Calle Lunga Santa Caterina (Venezia, 2019); Speculum mundi, Davide Gallo (Milano, 2018); Upon a Time, Galleria Eduardo Secci (Firenze, 2022); Fluuuuuido, Cassina Projects (Milano, 2022).