My Old Growth Trees II – Maia Ștefana Oprea

Opening: Friday, November 1, 2025, 6:00 PM
Venue: ETAJ artist-run space @etaj_artistrunspace
43 George Enescu St., Bucharest (Piața Romană)

ETAJ artist-run space is pleased to present the solo exhibition “My Old Growth Trees II” by Maia Ștefana Oprea — a continuation of the series with the same title, first exhibited at @meron.gallery in Cluj in April 2025.

Opening to the public on November 1, the exhibition runs in parallel with “Grădina Ideilor”, hosted at the ETAJ off space located within the Combinatul Fondului Plastic (29 Băiculești St.).

 The exhibition can be visited November 1–27, 2025, by appointment.

“My Old Growth Trees II” brings together paintings, drawings, and sculptures created mostly in October, during the artist’s first autumn residency at Grădina Ideilor in Nucșoara . Each work becomes a page of a visual diary — an echo of days spent immersed in nature: forest walks, cold rains, mushroom foraging , biking among fallen walnuts, gathering firewood, and drying apple and pear slices

The old beech trees of the place, along with the mushrooms found beneath their branches, have become the emotional and visual core of this series. Through their majestic presence, these trees stand as witnesses of time and symbols of continuity. Their translation into painting and drawing reflects a slow process of observation — a dialogue between the rhythm of the forest and the inner rhythm of creation 

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The portraits of beech treess fragment and reduce chromatically, turning into tense frames between light and shadow — much like the eye catches fleeting details in the woods. The suspended sculptures complete the ensemble with organic shapes, resembling branches twisting endlessly .

Nature becomes an extension of personal experience — a reflection on how the natural world turns into body, memory, and image, bridging inner and outer time, lived and represented moments.