Gheorghe Fikl Art for Sale at Auction

Gheorghe Fikl ranks among the most impressive post-Communist Romanian artists in terms of the art collectors keen interest in his works and the appreciation of his market rate. He studied at the Cluj University of Art and at the newly-established University of Art in his native Timisoara; his graduation work of 1998 has since been on permanent display at the University. Encouraged by professor Romul Nutiu, Fikl’s initial academic formation was in the area of experiment and installation, producing highly original mixed-media works, both in terms of concept and execution.

His extensive exploration of this mostly underground-dadaist approach, where he excelled in the random association of found-objects, prints, painting intervention, photography etc, led him gradually to a special interest in producing striking, unexpected composition, which de-stabilizes the viewer by the powerful contrast of the associated elements. This aesthetics has subsequently become the unmistakable visual brand of his creative work, which continues to develop in subtle, diverse ways. Aided by his exceptional drawing and painting skills, Fikl creates a sumptuous and disquieting visual universe, in series of works of highly symbolic stratification – where powerful and anguished animals – bulls, peacocks, horses, dogs or sheep – are the eerie occupants of surreal spaces, of violent and tragic hedonism, which provide multiple contexts for reflection about the inherent tension of our human condition, in historical and personal time.

The theme is deepened in his most recent, large-scale works, of the El Angel Exterminador series, as well as in the first work of the new series he is currently painting, The End of History, shown in a one-night-only preview by AnnArt gallery in Bucharest: they introduce references to iconic cultural models, which Fikl turns into personal visions of existential anxiety and melancholy hope about the loss and recovery of our innermost humanity, in a world so frequently slashed by terror and distruction. With a track-record of solo-shows in Timisoara (of which his latest, in September 2016, at the National Art Museum, has had a decisive contribution to his hometown’s successful bid for the European Cultural Capital programme), Bucharest, Luxembourg and New York, Gheorghe Fikl’s works have been successful in public auction transactions and and are part of important private collections in Romania, the United States, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Andorra, Luxembourg, Germany. He lives and works in Timisoara and Socolari.