Ana Cristea Gallery is pleased to present the first solo show in the US of the Romanian artist Razvan Boar (b. 1982). Boar is one of the most promising and original talents emerging from a new generation of painters in Romania, a country which has recently produced an important movement in contemporary painting.

At first sight Boar’s characters might appear deliciously seductive. However, once our gaze has lingered on a particular painting, we are drawn into the scenario the artist imagines for us. Initially, these scenarios might appear quite straight forward, even familiar, but the work’s familiarity is not merely rooted in commonplace contemporary imagery; it springs from Boar’s attentiveness to Art’s great past masters.

The one constant of Boar’s work is that no matter what the dress, social status or position of his sitters, their humanity burns out from the work; it is confrontational and unavoidable. Razvan Boar’s works, meticulously rendered paintings and drawings, withhold themselves. They are oblique in their exploration of social or political change in the lives of their protagonists. Things are happening, but somewhere in the middle distance. His subjects are indifferent to our gaze, fully absorbed in their own worlds, as we, through looking, become absorbed in ours.

It is perhaps this area, where the image breaks down into its effects, that the artist is exploring altogether.

The recipient of the Constantin Brancusi fellowship granted by Romanian Cultural Institute, Razvan Boar, is currently working in Paris at Cite Internationale des Arts. Recent shows include “Portraits of Ambiguity” at Ana Cristea Gallery and “Portraits and Selfportraits” curated by Liliana Popescu at Knoll Galerie as part of the project “EAST by SOUTH WEST, curated by_vienna 2011”.

For additional information, please contact Ana Cristea Gallery at (212) 904-1100 or at [email protected] The gallery is located at 521 West 26th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues and is open from Tuesday through Saturday from 11am to 6pm.

The exhibition is made possible with the support of Romanian Cultural Institute in New York.