Writings a Solo Show by C Fodoreanu

Opening Reception: Holy Saturday, April 19, 4-6 pm

On View: April 19 - May 26, 2025

LOS/NR is thrilled to present writings, a solo exhibition by San Diego interdisciplinary artist and physician C Fodoreanu, on view from April 19 to May 26, 2025. This exhibition marks Fodoreanu’s first solo show in our gallery featuring a selection of paintings alongside photographs, single-channel video works, and a site-specific installation composed of water, wood, acrylics, and silks.

C Fodoreanu’s paintings depict religious motifs and stories inspired by his upbringing in the village of Nicula, Transylvania, the cradle of popular religious painting on glass. His maternal grand grandfather, Gheorghe Feur, was in fact the last known painter in the tradition of “writing” icons. Fodoreanu is re-creating these subliminal images into large works, each carrying a story significant to who he is as a person today. The title for the show is “writings,” in line with the old belief that one cannot paint the word of God, only write it again.

In writings, Fodoreanu assumes the “clumsiness” the icons of Nicula were so often reproach with, and paints almost as children would do when trying to render the world around them: not “the way one sees it” with foreshortenings and in perspective, but by an agglomeration of some characteristic features, structurally necessary to make the surrounding world recognizable. What looks like “clumsiness” to an eye familiar with academic painting is the very essentialization and simplification of forms, the abbreviation and eliminations peculiar to a rapid execution which make this kind of painting so attractive, so expressive and suggestive - it is a painting from which any insignificant detail has been eliminated. The icon painters on glass avoided drawing a straight line with the help of a ruler. They believed that using a ruler, real or fictive, generating perfect shapes and forms was straying away from beauty. The line drawn with a free hand better represents life as it contains the heartbeat of the painter with its perceived slight irregularities. The “clumsiness” stops being “clumsy” and instead is elevated to a norm. Avoiding mastery of the perfect line is an assumed artistic choice to express the living soul, the palpable life force - beauty. Fodoreanu places these paintings in communication with his works in other mediums to parallel his perspective as an adult and physician of today to the old imagery flooding his childhood naïve to understanding self and others, adding a subtle disruptive queerness questioning the familiarity of these old told stories.

About the Artist

C Fodoreanu lives and works in San Diego, CA. He holds a BA in Philosophy from UC San Diego, an MD from Harvard Medical School, and an MFA from School of Visual Arts in New York. He is a full-time practicing Pediatrician. He started painting before inherently transitioning to different mediums and modalities to create his art, from creative writing, photography and collages, to videos, installations and sculptures. His work pursues a poetry of light, and explores the human body as a metaphor for how humans relate to the surrounding nature and each other, faith, mythology, play, love, intimacy, memory, fleetingness of time, and the fragility of life. The first recipient of the Annual Sidney L and Sally F. Saltzstein Endowment on Compassionate Care in 2023, and a selected graduating artist from the School of Visual Arts in New York showcased at the Untitled Art in Miami in 2023, Fodoreanu has exhibited his work through various platforms and at institutions including solo exhibitions at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Cornel/Henry Art and University of California School of Medicine in San Diego, and Ronald Silverman Fine Arts Gallery at Cal State LA. He is the author of three poetry books (Romanian), and a photography monograph (English) that is part of the permanent collection of Maison Europeenne de la Photographie (France,) De Pietri Artphilein Foundation (Switzerland,) and Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, to name a few. His visual work belongs to private collections throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

*Parking is available at El Patio Shops building on 7946 Ivanhoe Ave for a flat fee of $7, or at The Ivanhoe building on 7817 Ivanhoe Ave for a flat fee of $10. Street parking is free after 6 pm but likely hard to find during our event.*

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

level of service not requiree, 7910 Ivanhoe Avenue, San Diego, United States