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Marius Bercea

MARIUS BERCEA

Shadow of Others MAKI 19 April–31 May 2025 Omotesando, Tokyo
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Press Release

MAKI Gallery is pleased to present Shadow of Others, a solo exhibition by Romanian artist Marius Bercea, at Omotesando, Tokyo. Bercea’s work merges contrasting perspectives, creating a space where fiction and reality, glamour and fragility, memory and oblivion intersect, posing questions that function both as a historical reflection and an autobiographical journey.

In Shadow of Others—a painting that lends its name to the exhibition—the artist contemplates Romania’s historical position on the periphery, navigating its shifting relationships with dominant global powers. Figures in the painting appear to enjoy a seaside setting, yet plants and sunshades partially obscure them, their forms blending into the landscape.

For Bercea, painting is an ongoing daily practice, fueled by a continuous encounter with art history, literature, cinema, music, and travel. His work, the result of constant exploration in his creative laboratory, embodies the boundless possibilities of his chosen medium and navigates between socio-political concerns and personal experiences. We warmly invite you to experience this compelling meditation on history, memory, and identity, thoughtfully articulated by Bercea’s evocative and multilayered visual language.

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About the Artist

Born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in 1979, Marius Bercea received both his BA and MA at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca in 2003 and 2005, respectively. Bercea’s vividly colored paintings harbor melancholic undertones in their depictions of the banalities and uncertainties of life in post-Communist Romania. Alongside Adrian Ghenie and Victor Man, Bercea is regarded as one of the leading artists of the Cluj School, a group of painters who coalesced in Cluj-Napoca after the 1989 Romanian Revolution. His subjects are often set against decorative yet decrepit backdrops, embodying the intimate, inherently autobiographical nature of his work. Reality and fiction, growth and decay, personal memory and public history collide in the artist’s fragmented scenes, in which lush landscapes, imposing architecture, and elusive figures coexist in a precarious balance.

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About the Gallery

MAKI Gallery was first established in Tokyo in 2003, with the aim of promoting works by seminal avant-garde Japanese artists of the 1950s-60s. The gallery has since gradually shifted its focus to working with emerging contemporary artists. After opening a location in the bustling, high-end shopping district of Omotesando in 2014, MAKI Gallery opened an expansive, museum-caliber space in the growing gallery hub of Tennoz in 2020. Across these two outposts, MAKI Gallery presents a broad range of works by internationally active artists, including Mungo Thomson, Miya Ando, Susumu Kamijo, and Marius Bercea, while also introducing younger Japanese artists, such as Anne Kagioka Rigoulet, Keisuke Tada, and Takuro Tamura, to a global audience. The gallery has also participated in various international art fairs such as Frieze New York, The Armory Show, Asia NOW, and West Bund Art & Design.

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Address
4-11-11 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
Tokyo
Japan
Opening Hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11.30am – 7pm
(1)
Tokyo 4-11-11 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
MAKI contemporary art gallery in Omotesando Tokyo Japan
MAKI
4-11-11 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
+81 364 347 705
http://www.makigallery.com

Opening hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11.30am – 7pm
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