Andrea Tivadar is a representative of the young, abstract generation of the internationally renowned Cluj-Napoca scene of the 2010s. In her colourful, “tubist” canvases, she rearranges the forms of modernism with energetic combinations of broad gestures and cylindrical tubular shapes.
Andrea Tivadar, born in Satu Mare, Romania, graduated from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca in the mid-2010s. Her early maturing painting is a sensual, colouristic surface treatment, rather than an ironic reabstraction. Her paintings show brightly coloured tube shapes, plastically modelled against a neutral background, smeared with broad gestures. These motifs first coiled like wires in an industrial atmosphere, then fell apart into smaller segments floating in cosmic space. The three-dimensional spatial elements evoke the playful motifs of postmodernism and Fernand Léger's stovepipe cubism (tubism), while the pigment mass – enriched with glue – smeared with a wide scraper evokes the emblematic gestures of Gerhard Richter. As Fábián Takáts put it at her 2023 exhibition: “Even the “background” behind the tube-like, cartridge-box-like formations of her latest canvases is layered. A “base” similar to a corrugated steel plate hides additional depths, increasing the sense of spaciousness and spatiality. The dancing, vibrating bodies, reminiscent of neon signs, are scattered and floating in this seemingly endless grey space”. Andrea Tivadar has had several solo exhibitions in Romanian and Hungarian galleries, from Bucharest, through Cluj-Napoca, to Budapest. She lives and works in Cluj Napoca.
Gábor Rieder