Catalin Tavala
b. 1996, Romania
Cătălin Tăvală is a contemporary Romanian artist born in 1996 in Raul Sadului, a small village near Sibiu, Romania. He graduated from the theoretical high school ''Octavian Goga'' 2015, in the biochemistry department and later pursued a BA and MA in Graphics, a part of the University of Art and Design Cluj-Napoca’s Fine Arts faculty. At present, Cătălin is studying for a PhD in visual arts at the Art and Design University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Tăvală uses traditional figurative painting as his main outlet of expression, portraying ominous and unsettling compositions that unearth the darker and honest truths of contemporary life. Employing iconographical and figurative symbolism, Tăvală harnesses themes of freedom, the soul, and our moral value system, and integrates them with his style of stark and empirical painting. Through this process, he creates a ruinous atmosphere that captivates the viewer in a raw and unforgiving manner. Coalescing empiricism with self-expression, Tăvală uses drawing as a means to document and analyse his experiences, creating a visual language that borders the temporal and psychological realms. Using representational elements in his work, he portrays animalistic hybrids, isolation, motion, stagnancy, and figures in manufactured settings, all acting as metaphors for the modern man's attitude towards the challenges of the contemporary world.
“In a reality full of challenges, where human freedom is increasingly thin, ignorance and misinformation become tools of destabilization of being. In this attempt to relativize the fundamental values of life and of art, the man, the artist, can resist, only through courage, dignity and faith”. - Tăvală Cătălin
Tăvală Cătălin has exhibited his work extensively in Romania as well as Europe, he has also received numerous accolades, which include the Award of the French Institute in the Expo Marathon Cluj-Napoca competition, in 2019, and the Grand Prize of the Expo Marathon Project, 2017.