Norbert Filep is a Romanian contemporary artist who lives and works in Cluj-Napoca. In the past couple of years, his oeuvre went through different practices, mainly articulated by the use of the medium of drawing as a central mechanism for his conceptual approach to abstraction.
Whether he uses simple lines traced by a ruler, grids taken from the basics of technical drawing, or texts borrowed from different art catalogs or magazines, his vocabulary relies on a simple concept defined by the information itself. In such a way he is engaged in discovering new possibilities in abstraction, by redefining different processes of generating information through accumulation and repetition. Thus, the outcome is defined by different series of works, constructed in several layers of graphite or sometimes other materials, such as glass, revealing his abstract territories where the viewer is encouraged to decipher the slowly revealing dialogue between the material, tools, and the process that generate delicate fluctuations inside the work’s network. The apparition of volume, elevations, marks, and bends in fiber, results of the interaction between the elasticity of cellulose and hard graphite pencils, square rulers or stencils, reveal the sculptural tactility of the works, marked by the obsessive process of applying the layers meticulously in an absurd way, similar to the absurdity of our digital society.
From his point of view, our society is lying at the most important point in history; a point where everything is getting more and more accelerated and immaterial, and such physical dimensions which constructed our past society are fading away… this is the main reason why I chose the exploit these fields (technical drawings, texts, books, etc.) because these are the fields that once had drawn our society, our houses, our cars, our everyday objects. Today, they seem to be all calculated….
Among his solo exhibitions are: Mapping the paper, Sector 1 Gallery, Bucharest, 2018; Simple things, Pilot Art Space, The Paintbrush Factory, Cluj-Napoca, 2018; One after another, Mie Lefever Gallery, Ghent, 2019; Art Rotterdam Fair, Rotterdam, 2020. His works have been included in several group exhibitions: The little thing that counts, MARRA/NOSCO Gallery, Brussels, 2022; Mirror, Mirror, CFHILL, Stockholm, 2021; Electric Crossroads, Bubble n Squeak, Brussels, 2021; After 12 Years, National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest, 2020; Out of blue, Museum of Recent Art, Bucharest, 2020; Mother Tongue, Sector 1 Gallery, Bucharest, 2019. His works are included in private and public collections such as The National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest, The Museum of Recent Art, Bucharest, The ING Collection, Bucharest.
