Sergiu-Bogdan Roman

Born in 1977 in Iasi, Romania, Sergiu graduated from the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iasi, The Faculty of Philosophy, with a major in Philosophy and Logic.
His first paintings sold at the age of 13, Sergiu pursued his passion for art by studying painting, fresco with Romanian masters in private lessons and workshops, and soon after arriving in Shanghai, he managed to have his first solo show in China, at Xuhui Art Museum (2014).
Throughout his whole work, Sergiu has been continuously preoccupied with capturing and dramatically expressing the conflicting nature of the human being, its fragility and vulnerability but also its strangeness, unpredictability, and violence.
As someone who has had his own encounters with the brutality of life, he believes that art’s primary purpose is not that of creating beauty (no matter how intuitive this idea is), but that of being a language, another kind of language, yet an extremely personal language, through which the artists must not only express themselves but rather offer another interpretation to life, show a light, connect people, heal wounds, suggest a purpose, unmask falsity, tear down fake and instable personal walls, etc. Just like Mark Rothko, Sergiu believes that art is not decoration, but a philosophy, a statement, a social and psychological discourse, a message from people to people.
In a growing art world dominated by abstractions without a concept, colorful and soft decorative works, without any clear or powerful idea behind them, except that to be liked, Sergiu wants his art not to be comfortable, but something that Francis Bacon called “existentialist”. That is dealing with the extreme aspects of our lives, with our Jungian “Shadow”, our strange and inexplicable behaviors, our coincidental encounters that shift the direction of our lives, etc. Sometimes it’s not even about a formulated idea, but something like a very strong feeling or a premonition that needs to be addressed somehow, but without words, because that particular feeling is not meant for words. This is why Sergiu believes that true existentialist art or a very honest art will always contain a mysterious element, something ineffable and even metaphysical, something that only painting can reveal and for which words are (and should be) useless.