Vault One Gallery & Korunk is pleased to invite you to the opening of the exhibition “As Above, So Below” presenting artworks by Mihai Ciplea and Sergiu Ujvarosi.
The exhibition is curated by Adriana Bicăzan, and it’s part of the project “Praxis! Emergent curators days”. The opening will take place on June 27th, 6 PM at General Eremia Grigorescu 52, Cluj-Napoca.
The trace, the fragment, and the absent form are as powerful as a carefully constructed
object. “As Above, So Below” brings together two artists whose practices are rooted in
exploring origin, memory, and perceptions. It’s a quiet search that manifests the tension
between permanence and impermanence.
Sergiu Ujvarosi approaches materiality and form through a near-archaeological lens, collecting animal skulls, bones, and inorganic relics of time. His works gain a specific flow; they manifest as iron sculptures cast from molds into the earth, with animal matter imprints guiding the raw material. Through this process, the artist enacts transformations where the original organic form dissolves and merges with the soil – the earth becomes a universal matrix for the continuous reprocessing of the matter.
The iron, flowing freely within the molds, embodies the physical quality of nature and a continuous resistance to it. In this regard, history is not fixed but layered – animal remains become carriers of immeasurable pasts, reassembled into new narratives where origin and finality are persistently unsettled.
The intimate medium of dry pastel on paper, often used in Mihai Ciplea’s works, engages invisibility, temporality, and a profound sense of self-reflection. Pastels deeply layered are sculpted not by addition but by subtraction – traces of erasure become a spiritual act, forming indecipherable images. Through repetitive construction and deconstruction, the drawings dissolve origin, allowing the viewer’s gaze to interpret the faded strokes.
