Artists | MAKI Gallery | MAKI

Born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in 1979, Marius Bercea received both his BA and MA at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca in 2003 and 2005, respectively. Bercea’s vividly colored paintings harbor melancholic undertones in their depictions of the banalities and uncertainties of life in post-Communist Romania. Alongside Adrian Ghenie and Victor Man, Bercea is regarded as one of the leading artists of the Cluj School, a group of painters who coalesced in Cluj-Napoca after the 1989 Romanian Revolution. His subjects are often set against decorative yet decrepit backdrops, embodying the intimate, inherently autobiographical nature of his work. Reality and fiction, growth and decay, personal memory and public history collide in the artist’s fragmented scenes, in which lush landscapes, imposing architecture, and elusive figures coexist in a precarious balance.
Bercea’s recent solo exhibitions include This Side of Paradise, Art Encounters Foundation (Timișoara, Romania, 2024); Echo of a Breaking String, Lyles & King (New York, 2024); Blue Silk, François Ghebaly (New York, 2022); and The Far Sound of Cities, MAKI Gallery (Tokyo, 2021). His works are also part of numerous public and private collections, such as the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark; Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway; Zabludowicz Collection, London; and Olbricht Collection, Berlin.