C Fodoreanu’s “writings” tells more than one story
On writings by C Fodoreanu — by Shana Nys Dambrot
One thing about interdisciplinary artist C Fodoreanu is how he excavates his own past for the foundational inquiries of his art practice — delving into the deep waters of childhood, dreams, fears, memories, family legends, art history, formative experiences, cultural legacy, and layers of identity. By inventively filtering these recollections not only through the misty lens of time, but also the clear-eyed view of modern science (his other calling is practicing medicine) Fodoreanu teases out the myriad poetic and psychical impacts of the past on the present, and the spirit on the body.
But another thing about Fodoreanu is that as he moves through this process, as he works through conceptually architected and distinct series, he implements constant material reinventions to match. Across books, photography, film and video, sculpture and installation, and now paintings, Fodoreanu is adept at matching materiality, aesthetic, energy, and emotion. In evocative and mystical photographs, gently pulsating video, tactile and metonymic books, and surreal, almost Jungian sculptural moments, Fodoreanu conceptualizes idea and form as intertwined, symbiotic — the better to amplify and embody his stories and their origins.
In the case of his new exhibition writings — and especially as regards the paintings at the heart of the installation — a Postmodern medievalism flourishes among a selection of more tech-forward and elemental moments. The paintings merge religious scenes with contemporary twists, channeling the haute naive style of the glass icon paintings for which his village (and his great-grandfather) is known. The artisans of Nicula, Transylvania called their practice ‘writing’ rather than ‘painting’ because they were fulfilling a holy, mystical task in the inscription and thus dissemination of the messages. Now Fodoreanu takes all of this on — his heritage of culture and family, the assertively folklorical, stylized visual language that belongs to it, and the inspiration to make a painting cycle that tells the stories of his own modern life. Like Walt Whitman wrote in Song of Myself, the art — as the man — contains contradictions and multitudes aplenty.
The paintings’ brazen chromatic brightness represents the traditional technique of such works being painted on glass, evoking the flatness and the radiance, the quickness and the gestures. But in the lexicon of modern painting, such a palette is also understood to engage emotions and stimulate the optic nerve. Auric and halo motifs, frames within frames as spatial devices, patterns and symbols like roses and stars, neverending swoops of draped fabrics, processions of saints like a mosaic, the preposterous physiologies, a groovy velvet cocktail lounge for Jesus… In these and other choices, Fodoreanu expresses the charms of a ‘pure, humble’ view of nature and empathy for the lively mess of the soul — which even in its simplest form contains multitudes.
Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Downtown LA. Formerly the Arts Editor for the L.A. Weekly from 2018–2024, she is a contributor to the Village Voice, Flaunt, Artillery, and other culture publications. She studied Art History at Vassar College, and is the recipient of the 2022 & 2024 Mozaik Future Art Writers Prize, the 2022 Rabkin Prize for Art Criticism, and the LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Critic of the Year award for 2022.
Essay on writings, solo exhibition at level of service not required (LOS/NR), La Jolla, CA, 2025. First published by the author on Substack, April 19, 2025. Read on Substack →
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