Confronting Teodora Axente’s new solo exhibition “From Horizon of the Matter, Rises the Vertical of the Soul” at Gallery Rosenfeld in London is an unavoidably tense experience. Visiting the show in October, one immediately senses the deliberate unease the artist offers the viewer. Axente deepens the dark, hazy aesthetic she inherited from the Cluj School, now saturated with themes of societal decay and ageing.
Time, Decay, and the Vertical Quest
Looking at the works, the unsettling atmosphere Axente intentionally creates is palpable. She draws inspiration from early Renaissance and Sienese School painting as well as the Flemish Golden Age tradition, blending these historical references with her own sombre, emotive palette. In doing so, she suspends her figurative subjects in a liminal space between the material, the spiritual, and the inevitable.
Axente’s oil-on-canvas visual collages invite the viewer into a world entirely of her own making. Here, themes of social collapse and ageing are explored with intense focus. This is not merely a painterly technique; it is a philosophy that places a spiritual, vertical movement, the search for transcendent meaning behind the visible, at its core. Working on the fragile boundary between matter and spirit, the artist creates eerie, ambiguous figures that mirror the uncertainties of our time.
The exhibition also marks a turning point in Teodora Axente’s career. Immediately following this show, the artist will open her first major institutional solo exhibition, titled “Metamorfosi del Sacro” (The Metamorphosis of the Sacred), at the historic Santa Maria della Scala Museum in Siena. This is powerful proof of how highly her artistic strength and spiritual quest are valued on the international stage.
Exhibition Details
Artist: Teodora Axente
Title: From Horizon of the Matter, Rises the Vertical of the Soul
Venue: Gallery Rosenfeld, London
