Victor Man is a Romanian painter who is known for his small portraits and still-lifes, often executed in a dark palette, and merging old-mastery style with uncanny representations. His paintings explore non-linear narratives of memories, metaphors and paradoxes.
Read MoreIn 2007 Victor Man represented Romania at the Venice Biennale in Italy as well as the Prague Biennale in the Czech Republic.
Victor Man was born in Romania in 1974. He studied at the University of Fine Arts in Cluj, Romania during the 1990s. In 2000 he moved to Israel to study at the Jerusalem Studio School under the guidance of figurative painter Israel Hershberg. While studying in Jerusalem, Man lived in the Monastère de Sainte Claire where he painted from nature in the cloister garden.
Once he finished his studies in Jerusalem, Man returned to Romania to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2004. During his education in Romania and Israel, Man focused on creating observational paintings. In 2005 his practice changed dramatically when he began using a meticulous process to create more conceptual works.
Victor Man's paintings are characterised by a strong art historical dialogue, engaging artists such as Gerhard Richter and Edouard Manet, and by dark tones, giving his work a sense of the nocturnal.
The Chandler Series (2013-14) presents a series of portraits, each featuring a seated woman in a dimly lit room with what appears to be her own head in her lap. The title Chandler comes from a medieval term that referred to servants in charge of household candles who were tasked with shortening the wicks to extend the life of the candle. Each of the paintings present the figures cropped at their neck.
In this series, Man uses a slight variation of seated positions between the figures to suggest uncanny differences. Each artwork has a surrealist quality to it. Man's colour palette and old-mastery style blurs the lines between the imaginary and the real, and the past and present.
In this portrait, Man presents a boy's head as if from the perspective of someone experiencing double vision. The boy has a third eye and looks like he is in motion. The curves of a floating sailboat, painted just behind the boy's right ear, echo the lines of his hair, eyes and collar. It is as if the painting is a photograph that has suffered from multiple exposures.
The work appears to present multiple dimensions of memory and time through the boy's fragmented appearance. The painting's fluctuating tones of yellow, greens and blues—applied in oil on wood—give the work a mysterious aura.
Inspired by the first and second of Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies, and using his dark signature style, Man depicts otherworldly scenes of a surreal nature. Flowering Ego (2017) depicts a crow like creature reminiscent of a medieval masque. The traditional style of these oil paintings evokes religious impressions.
Much like his previous paintings, this series displays Man's ability to morph references from different periods. Man transgresses the cannon of art history by constructing dreamlike scenery in a hybrid painterly style. The combination of old and new imagery and style is ripe with contemporary visual idioms.
In 2007 Victor Man represented his native Romania at the Venice Biennale in Italy. His work was shown alongside artists Cristi Pogăcean, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor.
In 2014 Man received Deutsche Bank's 'Artist of the Year' and consequently showed his work in a solo exhibition at the Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle in Berlin.
Man was invited to contribute to the Venice Biennale again in 2015, where his work was shown in the Central Pavilion exhibition All The World's Futures curated by Okwui Enwezor.
Victor Man has exhibited his work extensively. His solo exhibitions include Victor Man, Blum & Poe Gallery, Tokyo (2018); El Candelero, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2018); Zephir, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2014); Victor Man, Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2012); The Painting, the Drawing, and Other Objects and Situations, Kunsthalle Lingen, Lingen (2011); If Mind Were All There Was, Hayward Gallery, London (2009).
Man's group shows include Carnivalesca, Kunstverein, Hamburg (2021); Werethings, Galeria Plan B, Berlin (2020); Une saison roumaine, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); Mirror, Frith Street Gallery, London (2014); La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); 52nd Venice Biennale, Romanian Pavilion, Venice (2007).
Victor Man is represented on Ocula by Blum & Poe Gallery, Galeria Plan B Gallery and Gladstone Gallery.
Writing about Victor Man has appeared in various reputable publications including Frieze, Art Forum and on Ocula Advisory.
Phoebe Bradford | Ocula | 2021
