
ABOUT ME
I was born in 1971, on the 16th of March, under the sign of Pisces, being quite determined ever since I was a child. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I always said I wanted to be a teacher. So I became one. But only for 6 years, during which time children taught me how to be a child again, how to be free, and paint. After the graduation of a fashion design college in 1993, I felt I wanted more, so I enrolled at the Fine Arts Faculty.
After two years of not learning a thing, the replacement of a teacher changed everything. I learned to laugh. I was followed by the ideal, abstract patterns of things and events, and their long, tall shapes cut down to a mysterious simplicity, unchanged every time. In my works, I try to preserve this permanent connection between things and their patterns. This way, I can gradually observe and dream about the same reality in which you need plenty of silence and stillness to achieve a balance between yourself and your surroundings.
I graduated in 2000 with the intention to repeat a year. I was truly enjoying it. After Radu was born, I went through a period of accumulating and then I just worked and worked. My daughter, Maria, whetted my appetite for painting even more; for me, motherhood meant fulfilment and it made me aware of a number of things. And then again, painting. Not even on a constant basis. Painting. I live inside it.
Nora Blaj is an exploratory artist. With the help of colours, graphic signs, writing, and inserts of all kinds, she brings to the surface of her own works an interior geometry which is subjective, ontological. The equations of the images inside the frames seem to have a simple solution for the viewers. When you look at them, the answer seems to come naturally: ‘yes, I like them’.
However, the tasteful visual impact of Nora’s compositions is also due to their vital interior substance. Her works have a heart. She actually paints answers to humanity’s deep questions, and we instantly like them because we recognize many of these answers as our own. Right here, at your disposal, lies a journal that may seem impersonal (as abstract art appears to be, in most cases). But if we look closer, we discover the threads of a story written in the first person, a story of the self. A story about plunging into darkness and the light of life. Nora brings the light to the surface, whether it is red, yellow, or orange, depending where her personal sun is: at sunrise, dusk, or noon.
Robert Șerban, Nora Blaj’s Personal Sun
Nora Blaj is the lucid, temperamental type of artist. If there is something about her painting that convinces me, it has to be this eruptive energy of saturated chromatic densities, which exalts visual excitation all the way to paroxysm. But also the confessive-interrogative refluxes, a sign of sensory relaxation, which positions her in the abstract or conceptual areas of painting.
Corneliu Antim
MY WORK
PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS:
2004
March Insemn, Galeria Artis, Bucuresti, Romania
April Letters for a Red. King, Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
2003
August Ordonarea Amintirilor, Ion Tiriac Bank, Timisoara, Romania
May Punkt Sieben, Deutsches Kulturzentrum, Timisoara, Romania
March Cu luare aminte, Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
2001
September Hemography, Orchideea Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
1999
July I, The Savoy Hotel, Mamaia, Romania
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS:
Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, United States of America, ex. Yugoslavia, Canada, Japan, Romania.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS I:
2003
December Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
Winter Salon, The Art Museum, Timisoara, Romania
Gent, Belgium
October Kulturzentrum, Erfurt, Germany
September Budapest, Hungary
August Palazzo D’Adda, Varralo, Italy
July Ion Ţiriac Bank, Timisoara, Romania
June The Art Museum, Satu Mare, Romania
April In Scheslitz, Giechburg, Germany
March Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
February Dor, Bamberg, Germany
Dor, Nürenberg, Germany
January Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
The Prefecture of Timisoara, Romania
2002
December Mozaic, Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
Winter Salon, The Art Museum, Timisoara, Romania
November Dor, Studio 13 Bamberg, Germany
August Dor, Bamberg Rathaus, Germany
Dor, Parsberg, Germany
Dor, Raiffeisen Bank Neumarkt, Germany
July Dor, Giechburg Castle, Bamberg, Germany
May Goethe Institut, Bucharest, Romania
April Brukenthal Museum Sibiu, Romania
February HVB Timisoara, Romania
COLLABORATIONS:
1999
October The Third Europe programme
1998
October Timisiensis magazine
MEMBERSHIP:
Member of the Romanian Union of Fine Arts
GROUP EXHIBITIONS II:
2001
December The Festive Exhibition, Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
Winter Salon, The Art Museum Timisoara, Romania
The National Art Salon, Bucharest, Romania
August Bank of Austria, Timisoara, Romania
2000
December Winter Salon, Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
May B > Materials, matter, sense, Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
1999
June Halcis Medical Center, Timisoara, Romania
April Student Festival, Timisoara, Romania
March Happening, Cotroceni Palace, Bucharest, Romania
1998
October The Romanian Cultural Center Budapest, Hungary
June Dying Homes, The Art Museum, Timisoara, Romania
May Memory as a Space, The Banat Museum, Timisoara, Romania
April Delta Gallery, Arad, Romania
Daytime Story, Helios Gallery, Timisoara, Romania
Dying Homes, Romanian Peasant’s Museum, Bucharest, Romania
ART WORKSHOPS:
2003
February International Art Symposium, Innsbruck, Austria
December Art fair, Gent, Belgium
September International Art Symposium, Budapest, Hungary
August First Symposium of Contemporary Art, Varallo, Italy
July Molnar art International Art Camp, Lesencetomaj, Balaton, Hungary
June International Symposium D. Fleiss & East-West Artists, Carei, Romania