Recently, at ArtEast Gallery Iasi, took place the opening of a new exhibition signed by artist Felix Aftene. The project presents 50 of his works, made in the serigraphy technique. The curatorial statement is signed by Dana Lungu, and presents aspects related to the artistic practice and concepts of the artist.

"In the present exhibition, Felix Aftene's challenge is in relation to serigraphy. He takes a 4000-year-old technique, which he appropriates, tests its limits, adapts it, domesticates it, polishes it like a lens through which he looks back at his own work. Selecting from the old cycles of reference works - the central character from Dali's Mustache, the idols and mythological characters from Falling in Time, the nudes and chimeras from Genesis, etc., Felix Aftene translates them into a new technical dimension, with new plastic vibrations. He thus rediscovers his own artistic path, the stages of creation and urges us to visit it in a different light. The exhibition is a real self-portrait of the author in serigraphy, because Felix Aftene never forgets his deep belief in the immortality of the figurative art and painting.

Beyond the self-referential stake, the exhibition is a tour in the aestheticization of a technique which, we must not forget, at its origins is a technique of multiplication. Of course, the present artist is neither the first nor the only one who undertakes the effort to ennoble the serigraphy technique, but the personal way in which he does it, the technical difficulties he overcomes, the complexity he reaches and the transition from the "graphic" effect to which is commonly assumed by the serigraphy to the effect of <<pictoriality>>, that Felix Aftene manages to achieve, gives it a special status, a privileged place in the history of this technique", stated the curator.

And the artist added: " (...) It is the first complete personal exhibition in this technique and I am convinced that it represents, from the point of view of exposure, only the beginning for me. And that's because serigraphy can't be limited to a millennial past, but will surely enrich its present and future forever, as long as passion, quality and the desire to create stories with the help of art are gathered in them".

FELIX AFTENE works in Iasi, but is known for a sustained artistic activity on the romanian and also the international art scene, in various artistic mediums, such as painting, sculpture, mural painting and new media. In 1996, he graduated Mural Painting from "George Enescu" Academy of Arts in Iasi. Since 2013, he is the president of the Iași Branch of the Union of Visual Artists in Romania.

In 2016, he obtained his PhD in Visual Arts at the "George Enescu" National University of Arts, with a thesis dedicated to contemporary visual arts. He had more than 40 personal exhibitions in museums and international art galleries in Austria, USA, Great Britain, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Israel, and has various artistic distinctions.