Radically counterpointing the figurative movement, Róbert Köteles is one of those artists who revisits and persists in working with non¬figurative painting. Since early on in his career, Róbert Köteles has started working with a filigreed weaving called „Clipa”, a virtually untranslatable term from Romanian, meaning „still moment”; it relates to both time and space, both active in a pregnant state of new shapes and moments that start diverging, colliding and ultimately shaping our reality. The artist continuously and obsessively tests this state of matter that exists underneath the surface of our perception. So thorough is his search, so unrelenting is the urgency of his artworks, that while he seizes “Clipa” in intricate geometrical webbings, so does “Clipa” seize him in its endless possibilities of genesis.
Róbert Köteles’S first series began in 1999, with his graduation project which thereafter inspired a complete dedication in non-figurative painting, thus inscribing in the descent of Timișoara’s artistic experiments, following in the footsteps of his professor at the University, the notable Romanian artist, Constantin Flondor, one of the founding members of the Sigma group.
„Clipa” was composed of geometrical shapes and patterns, in freehand drawings in ink or acrylic on canvas. The absence of mechanical accuracy makes his early works feel organic, but also translates the tireless repeated motions of the artist’s pattern-making, ever-shifting and making itself extant.
What followed was a generative period, with colours exploding from the network, fading into contours of weavings and merging in gradients of watercolor over the ink-drawn surfaces. His artworks did not just organically shape, but started twisting, bulging and stretching over sculptural surfaces (wrapped paper, curling canvases or optical effects under the effect of coloured glass or soap bubbles).
Starting with 2010, the grid named “Clipa” sunk into shapes of colours and near-perfect geometrical constructions with ink and acrylic on canvas. No longer brought into plain sight, “Clipa” was shaped by angular traces of colour in blue, red, yellow, black and white, deepening the abstract momentum of Róbert Köteles’s work.
His most recent series, Mater explores a new topography of a map without its territory, where the geography of reality does not explore the politics of an environment, but the environment itself as what it is and not of how it could be appropriated.
Róbert Köteles’ approach discloses its instruments and deconstructs them up to their constitutive elements (the point, the line, the stroke of colour). Once decomposed, those primary signs become vectors of a complex reasoning which places spatiality and temporality at the core of his discourse.
Solo Exhibitions
2017 Mater, H’Art Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
2016 Dialogic Silence, Club Electroputere, Craiova, Romania
2016 Meet the artist, The Ark, Bucharest, Romania
2015 Pending, Anca Poterasu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
2014 Kromo, Pal Art Gallery, Miercurea Ciuc, Romania
2013 Centrum, Casa Artelor, Centrul Cultural Palatele Brâncovenesti, Mogosoaia, Romania
2011 Forever, Calina Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
2008 În fiintare, Pygmalion Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
2005 Hyperceptie, ArTei Gallery, Hanul cu Tei, Timisoara, Romania
Selected group exhibitions
2017 Upcoming: The Map is Not the Territory, ARCUB, Bucharest, Romania
2017 The Privileged Eye, Vienna Contemporary, International Art Fair, Vienna, Austria (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
2017 Volta13 Basel, Switzerland (with Anca Poterasu Gallery)
2017 The Map is Not the Territory, The Romanian Cultural Institute, Lisbon, Portugal
2015 Opus 5, organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute RCI Vienna and the International Cultural Association Soleil de l’Est ,Viena, Austria 2015 Institute RCI Prague + Romanian Embassy in Slovak Republic and the International Cultural Association Soleil de l’Est , Slovakia
2014 Snapshot Romania, Imago Mundi Luciano Benetton Collection, Treviso, Italy
2014 In Memoriam Stefan Calarasanu, Pygmalion Gallery, Timişoara, Romania
2014 Annotations III – Painting Lessons, Constantin Flondor and Noima group , Academy of Economic Sciences, Romania
2013 Annotations II – Painting Lessons, Constantin Flondor and Noima group, Mansarda Gallery of the Art Faculty in Timisoara, Romania
2013 Annotations I – Painting Lessons, Constantin Flondor and Noima group, Gallery 28, Timisoara, Romania
2013 „Présences de la peinture contemporaine Roumaine en France avec Soleil de l’Est entre 2009-2012” at Banat Art Museum, Timişoara, Romania
2013 Gărâna 2012, exhibition organized by Herczeg Foundation at Art Museum from Banat, Timisoara, Romania
2012 Art Market Budapest, Baril & Fabrica de pensule din Cluj Napoca, Budapesta, Hungary
2012 Salon de peinture Roumanie Contemporaine, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
2012 Annotations – Painting Lessons, Constantin Flondor and Noima group , Curtea Veche Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
2012 Set designer in the movie „ROCKER” , directed by Marian Crişan The Moldavian Salon, 12th edition, Contemporary Art Museum „George Apostu”, Bacău, Romania
2012 Barrique Art : De Gustibus, organized by Herczeg Foundation in Romanian Culture Institute and the Tourism and Trade Industry Museum in Budapest, Hungary
2012 International Painting Symposium in Gărâna, 2nd edition, organized by Foundation Herczeg, Romania
2012 International Painting Symposium, 1st edition, Gyúla, Hungary
2011 In the core of things, Art Museum from Cluj Napoca, Romania
2011 Barrique Art :Art and Wineby Gustibus, Banat Art Museum, Timişoara, Romania
2011 Romanian painters exhibition, in Galeria La Caserne, organized by Soleil de l’Est in Joue-les-Tours, France
2011 Symposium International „Almási Béla” , 11th edition, Delta Gallery, Arad and Dorobanţi, Romania
2011 International Painting Symposium, Gărâna, Romania
2011 Romanian painters exhibition, organized by International Cultur Association Soleil de l’Est , in Foyer Main building of European de Brevete Office, Haga, Netherlands
2010 In the core of things, Calina Gallery, Halele Timco, Timişoara, Romania
2010 Romanian painters exhibition, organized by International Cultur Association Soleil de l’Est , Galerie des Deux Clochers, Saint-Genis-desFontaines, France
2010 Artist in residence in Briare, Soleil de L’est, France
2010 International Sculpture Symposium, Kötegyán, Hungary
2010 20 years anniversary, Halele Timco, Timişoara, Romania
2010 Symposium International „Almási Béla”, Dorobanţi, Romania
2009 From Bucureşti to Paris-A Panoramic View on Romanian Art, ParisDrouot Montaigne, France
2009 Art director in the movie „Morgen” , directed by Marian Crişan, www.morgen.ro
2008 8 after 10, Helios Gallery, Timişoara, Romania
2008 International Sculpture Symposium, Kötegyán, Hungary
2008 International Art Symposium, Kétegyháza, Hungary
2007 New Identities in the Romanian Painting and Sculpture after 1990, Dana Gallery, Iaşi, Romania
2007 The Young Transylvanian Artists Exhibitions, The Culture Palace from Debrecen, Hungary
2007 Romanian painters, Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2007 Armonia 12, the 12th edition of the Harmony Creative Workshop, organized by David Gheorghe and Elisabeta, Morareni, Romania
2007 International Creative Workshop, Kétegyháza, Hungary
2007 International Sculpture Workshop, Kötegyán, Hungary
2006 Intro, Delta Gallery, Arad, Romania
2006 400, Anniversary Exhibition, Arany Palace, Salonta, Romania
2006 Creative workshop, Biharkeresztes, Hungary
2005 Two Artists, The Visual Arts Gallery, Oradea, Romania
2005 International painting exhibition, Nagykörös, Hungary
2004 The Art Salon, the Criş Region Museum, Oradea, Romania
2002 Silence, exhibition organized together with director Marian Crişan, Arany Palace, Salonta, Romania
2001 Attitude, Hellios Gallery, Timişoara, Romania
1999 The Winter Salon, Hellios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
1998 Ready Gala, The Art Museum, Timişoara, Romania
1998 East-West, Vardy Gallery, Sunderland, United Kingdom
1998 Threshold, Arany Palace, Salonta, Romania
1998 Student Fest, Timişoara, Romania
1997 Christmas Stat, 28 Gallery, Timişoara, Romania
1997 The Tescani Creative Workshop, Romania
1996 Symbol, Adam Müller Gutenbrun House, Timişoara, Romania
1995 Student Fest, Timisoara, Romania
1994 Jesus is Alive, University of the West, Timişoara, Romania
1994 East-West, The Art Museum, Timişoara, Romania
1994 Student Fest, Timisoara, Romania
1993 Eminescu, Casa Universitarilor, Timişoara, Romania
1993 The Macea Creative Workshop, jud Arad, Romania
1992 Stages, Clio Hall, Arad, Romania
1992 Landscape, Landtag des Saarlandes, Saarbrucken, Germany
Prizes
2012 Nominated for the Gopo Prizes in Best Art Director category for Morgen, Romania