Press release in English: Fading Thoughts_Press Release_ENG

Press release in Romanian: Fading Thoughts_Comunicat_RO

Ivan Gallery is pleased to invite you on Saturday, July 11, at 6 pm, to the opening of Fading Thoughts, a solo exhibition by Mihail Șarpe, presenting the artist’s most recent works.

Without following a predetermined path, Mihail Șarpe discovers, little by little, the becoming of
form through an intimate dialogue with the material. The process begins with the materials available in the studio or with their search along the way—found, collected, reclaimed. The
search for, or selection of, materials from his immediate surroundings thus becomes an
essential stage of an intuitive creative practice.

Before form begins to exist, it is first brought into view. From this initial encounter with the
material unfolds a dialogue in which its possibilities are observed, followed, and gradually set in
motion. Through this metamorphosis, guided by an ongoing dialogue with the material, raw
matter is transformed, and with it thought evolves naturally. The idea takes shape gradually,
following an organic growth that finds its contours throughout the process, sometimes only at
its very end. This continuous movement ultimately becomes the final form of the work itself.
Mihail Șarpe is interested in fluid forms, in the impression of visual movement, and in the interplay between form, space, and volume. His sculptures are the result of an ongoing interaction in which the act of making the object also becomes the means through which the work discovers its own meaning. Rather than imposing a direction onto the material, the artist allows himself to be guided by it, working alongside the possibilities it reveals. In this sense, the act of looking is not merely the beginning of the work, but the beginning of a form still in the process of becoming.

Mihail Șarpe (b. 1991, Trușeni, Republic of Moldova) studied videography at the Academy of
Music, Theatre and Fine Arts in Chișinău before pursuing sculpture at the University of Art and
Design in Cluj-Napoca, where he currently lives and works. His artistic practice explores the
expressive potential of reclaimed materials, particularly wood, through an intuitive process in
which form and meaning emerge throughout the act of making. In 2024, he held a solo exhibition at Lutnița Gallery and participated in Art Brussels in a duo presentation with Diana Cepleanu, a project awarded the Discovery Prize.