One to Watch

Sergiu Laslo’s monochromatic paintings are out of the ordinary

Romanian artist Sergiu Laslo takes an unconventional approach to depicting the everyday. Inspired by his surroundings, be it passerby, pop culture, or old photographs, he creates a surreal montage of often overlooked and even unsettling imagery in his paintings. A surgical glove or a scene from a movie serves as a starting point, as he further fragments and obscures figures in his signature dark color palette.

Sergiu studied Painting at the University of Arts and Design and previously attended the School of Fine Arts, both in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He has shown his works in various group exhibitions in Romania, most recently at the Gara Mica and Launloc Cultural Spaces, as well as Architecture Days in Cluj-Napoca.

What are the major themes you pursue in your work?

I draw inspiration on what surrounds me, I see something and it gets stuck in my head. It may be something on the street or a scene in a movie or an old photograph. It’s usually something out of the ordinary, that people would not normally call beautiful, like a surgery. I take bits and pieces of what I see and I put them together into a collage made of peculiar characters. My paintings don’t have a lot of colours, they tend to be monochromatic or cold, and I’ve noticed I seem to use purple in most of my work.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?  

Someone once told me – and I’m convinced I’m not the only artist to be told this – that you should carry on with your art regardless of what others might say about it, because what you create is who you are.

Prefer to work with music or in silence?

I need loud music to paint, there is no doubt about it. In order to paint for a lot of hours without stopping, I like listening to electronic music, since it keeps a steady rhythm.

If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?

This is a tough question, there are a lot of artists whose techniques I admire. Let’s say, the first that comes to mind would be Anselm Kiefer.

Who are your favorite writers?

I enjoyed reading Primo Michele Levi, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Giovanni Papini and Mircea Eliade. Mostly, I like reading autobiographies or novels inspired from historical events.