Dan Laurentiu Arcus

Dan Arcus is a Romanian visual artist based in Brussels. Working across painting and drawing, he brings figurative detail into contact with expressive, uncertain spaces. His images leave room for the viewer’s own memories and interpretations.

Biography

Born in 1983, Dan Laurentiu Arcus graduated in fashion design from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. After working in Romanian fashion, he moved to Brussels and returned to painting and drawing. His practice has developed from expressive portraiture into complex figurative compositions and abstraction.

Artistic practice

Arcus explores how comfort, consumer culture and the rapid circulation of images shape our perception of reality. Found imagery becomes a starting point for narratives that move between observation and imagination. Figures, gestures and ambiguous settings invite different readings rather than a single explanation.

Oil, acrylic, pastel, charcoal and ink offer different ways to build and interrupt an image. Layering, transfer and the interaction of materials are central to a process in which the work can change direction as it develops. Recognizable forms coexist with more spontaneous passages, keeping the image open to the unexpected.

Selected exhibitions and activity

2021 · August–September: group exhibition, La voix des clous, Méménil, France. January–March: group exhibition, Ubique Gallery, Dinant, Belgium.

2019 · December: solo exhibition, European Court of Auditors, Luxembourg. June: group exhibition, National Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. March–May: solo exhibition, Galerie Laval, Liège, Belgium.

2018 · February: ArtOpenKunst group exhibition, Vanderborght, Brussels.

2017 · November: solo exhibition, Dansaert Center, Brussels. June: selected for Saatchi Art’s “Meet 6 Saatchi Art Artists from Belgium”. March: selected by Jessica McQueen for Saatchi Art’s “New Surrealist Works”.

2015 · Finalist, The 4th Bangkok Triennale International Print and Drawing Exhibition.

Other documented selections include Artfinder’s “Darkness and light”, “Inspired by Francis Bacon” and “Powerful portraits”.