One could argue that Radu Pandele’s work can be perceived as an explosive and versatile collision—a clash of eras, aesthetics, ideas, techniques, and cultures. Technically grounded and often with great virtuosity, but eminently bathed in a peculiar conceptual restlessness. Working across painting, drawing, installation, ceramics, sound, and digital media, one encounters fragments of pop icons, historical references, and digital motifs that collide in spaces that are both artificial and dreamlike. A distinctive visual language—fluid, hyper-saturated, and deeply attuned to the visual codes of our time—of which the tone remains measured. In this conversation, on the occasion of his first solo exhibition titled Tigertiger at Arsmonitor in Bucharest, Radu Pandele reflects on the origins of his practice, the tension between tradition and innovation, and how image-making today requires not only new tools, but new ways of seeing.
Born in 1993 and based in Bucharest, Pandele obtained a BA from the National University of Arts in Bucharest, followed by two MA degrees—one from the University of Art and Design in Cluj, and another from the National University of Arts in Bucharest. Pandele first gained recognition through his large-scale murals, marked by computer graphics and software effects, and became a prominent figure in the post-2015 muralist scene, with significant projects in cities across Romania and Europe. Today, his multidisciplinary oeuvre remains rooted in contemporary visual culture but sharpened by experimentation and conceptual rigor. Alongside painting and drawing, he integrates ceramic objects, ready-mades, sound elements, lightboxes, and computer-based processes. Since 2020, Pandele has been presenting his work in institutions such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), the Museum of Recent Art (MARe), and ArtSafari in Bucharest, as well as in venues in Cluj, Arad, Grenoble, and Lisbon.
Julien Delagrange: Before we discuss your artistic journey, congratulations on your first solo presentation at Arsmonitor in Bucharest. Can you please expand on the exhibition, its title, and concept?
Radu Pandele: Thank you, Julien! It’s my first solo show at Arsmonitor, so we naturally felt that it was time for a small retrospective—to properly introduce the public to my painting. Silviu Pădurariu, the curator of the exhibition, selected very specific works from the last 8 years. Most of them were chosen for the autobiographical, almost “useless” subjectivity they illustrate—but mostly for their technical aspects. Painting will always be about painting itself: about certain decisions made during the process, about giving up control, about the infinity of possible consequences—not so much about what it depicts. The title is an inside joke; it might not have anything to do with the selection, but it rhymes with each individual work.
JD: Given the tremendously versatile nature of your practice, is there a particular facet you felt was essential to bring forward in this show?
RP: My last solo shows were with galleries that gave me full responsibility to present a conceptual project.
This exhibition is the first time I’ve ever given complete control to the curator. Silviu is a curator I’ve discussed with constantly over the last 12 years, and whom I trust. It’s an exercise we both felt we needed.
JD: Are there any key works that function as the cornerstones of the exhibition? And, if yes, could you please tell us more about them? What works are your personal highlights?
RP: The first painting that visitors see when entering the gallery is called Cherry Tree. It is maybe a metaphor for my entire existence. In my childhood, we had a dying tree in our yard that was neglected for years, and somehow, miraculously, it sprouted a new little branch that turned into a thriving crown over time and grew improbable fruits. I replaced these with symbolic sculptures, spreaded as a pattern.
JD: Let’s shift our focus from the present to the past for a moment. Your professional career as an artist started as a muralist before evolving towards a multidisciplinary studio practice. What initiated this shift, and in which way does your background as a street artist serve your art today?
RP: Growing up in Romania, we became a cultural colony of America after the fall of communism. Unconsciously, we adopted a lot of their behaviors—for example, I grew up playing basketball, skateboarding, and making graffiti. It felt natural, but it was not. So the shift was gradual, but inevitable: I returned to my cultural roots, but I also embraced a globalist perspective on the art field. I first gained visibility through murals because they were immediate, public, and physical. The instant feedback from people cohabiting with my work was a joy. But as my interests moved toward image construction and complete freedom over the subjects, I needed a more controlled space. Public work taught me composition at scale, speed of execution, and how to work within chaos. I still use those instincts, just now on different surfaces or spaces.
JD: In your murals, you often incorporated elements that are connected to the process of image-making in a digital era—visually using smooth gradients and artificial colors, but also on a subversive, meta-level, including software references, digital effects, transparent PNG grids and an interplay with the visual layers of your image. Would you argue that this subversive approach to the process of art-making stands strong?
RP: I feel the process should reflect in the final object. If a sketch is made using certain digital software, its trace should sneak their way into the final result just as traditional analog techniques do. It’s not about quoting Photoshop or Blender for aesthetic reasons—it’s about being honest with the image’s DNA.
JD: Digital visual culture has been absorbed by a new generation of artists, in particular in ultra-contemporary painting—think of Amélie Bertrand (b. 1985), Vivian Greven (b. 1985), Igor Hosnedl (b. 1988), or Madeleine Bialke (b. 1991). In your work, it evokes a digitally altered, almost hallucinatory space. What draws you to this aesthetic, and how do you perceive this wider tendency that your work seems to embody so convincingly? How do you navigate the intersection between the analogue and the digital in your process?
RP: What draws me in is the tension between surface and depth—between a hyper-glossy visual and a messy, emotional, poetic, introspection. As for the analogue/digital split—I see it as an artificial distinction. A clay object and a vector file have the same potential for expression. I choose tools based on how I feel I could deny their nature. Maybe I’m in love with expanding the purpose of the digital tools—a 3D mesh that feels organic, or allowing mathematics to generate shapes like the process of Michael Hansmeyer (b. 1973). In a sense, nature is chaos, and the human instinct to dissect, inspect, and mimic that chaos is what I love about 3D software.
JD: Unlike the artists mentioned above, you move fluently between mediums—from painting and ceramics to digital art and sculpture. How do you translate this visual language and approach to different media?
RP: I’ve always loved a solo show that looks like a group show. Somehow, if everything’s too uniform, it feels boring. So I follow my instincts in all directions they lead in the process, and filter with time what is worthy of exploration for exhibiting and what’s a dead-end. I allow myself to have bad ideas. The market might not appreciate this type of approach, but it’s not about them.
JD: How do you choose the right medium for a given idea?
RP: Well, everything starts from my journals or the notes on my phone. Then, the urge to work brings me to the computer, where I do 3D sketches—and where creativity does have an ‘undo’ button. Only after going through these phases of trial and error, I decide what tools to use in the studio.
JD: Your work has been described as an “altered digital state of consciousness.” What does this phrase mean to you?
RP: My series of isometric digital still lifes—which includes one currently exhibited in the gallery’s dark room—might best illustrate that phrase. But a general look into my portfolio will show my obsession with visually and virtually deconstructing the laws of physics.
JD: Looking ahead, shifting to the future, what directions or questions are you most interested in exploring through your future projects?
RP: I’ve been thinking a lot about artificial nature and simulation theory—how we might have the power of generating and designing life. That could become the core of my next body of work, considering the Now Talk! series is my most recent.
JD: Thank you very much for your time, and wishing you the very best with the rest of the show.
Cover image: Portrait of Radu Pandele. Photo courtesy the artist and Arsmonitor.
Last Updated on October 2, 2025
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About the author:
Julien Delagrange (b. 1994, BE) is an art historian, contemporary artist, and the director of CAI and CAI Gallery. Previously, Delagrange has worked for the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels, the Jan Vercruysse Foundation, and the Ghent University Library. His artistic practice and written art criticism are strongly intertwined, examining contemporary art in search of new perspectives in the art world.
