Marius Craita-Mandra (b. 1969) graduated The National University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania (Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting Department) in 2000. His work includes solo and group exhibitions in Romania (“Simeza”, Bucharest – 2000, “The body in Balcan Art”, Timisoara -2013, “No Borders”, Bacau -2016) and group shows in Finland (“International EVERGREEN Art sympozium Hovinkartano” – 2007), France (“Comme vous émoi”, Paris – 2005, “La Vache Bleu“, Paris – 2008) and Belgium (“Why the black is not white”, Actionfields Gallery, Bruxelles -2010). Marius Craita-Mandra is one of the founders of “Colonia 21” artistic group through he organised a series of artistic residencies in Romania. He is also curator of some group exhibitions including: “Seven”, Bacau -2008 and “Colonia”, Bacau – 2008. Among the most important awards he received are the “Romanian Plastic Artists Union” Special Award in 2000 and “Romanian Plastic Artists Union”, Bacau Branch Award in 2015.
The complex visual discourse of Marius Craita-Mandra is unequivocally hyperrealistic, although it hints at several moments in the history of modern art and experimentalism. He genuinely believes in the actuality of the painted image and also in the „restoration” through painting of the concrete reality. Such attempts at precise recordings and representations of the world remind the viewer of the early photographic techniques and determine the artist to maintain an uninterrupted contact with the visible world and construct his visual metaphors on the grounds of these direct observations. Reality proves to be constantly surprising, rich in imaginative resources and inexhaustible as the ground for affective implications.