Previously having studied architecture, painter, sculptor and architect Horia Damian arrived in Paris right after the establishment of the Communist regime in Romania. The architectural structures in his works differ from monument design sketches, taking over the characteristics of a monumental art. Distinguishable from the contemporary works of American Minimal Art, his paintings, drawings and reliefs offer a metaphysical perspective on matter. In his rigorous compositions with pyramidal, terraced or profiled structures, an obsessive preoccupation with materials can be seen. Such archetypal, symbolic elements - as gates, temples, pyramids, capitals, and pediments populate Damian’s oeuvre. Most often, his works invite the viewer to reflect on the way she perceives the surrounding world, invoking a celestial rather than a terrestrial space, and sacral rather than temporal realities. Damian’s pieces have been part of many exhibitions and collections around the world, including in the National Museum of Art, Bucharest; the Musée Fabre, Montpellier; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Venice Biennale; Documenta, Kassel; the Grand Palais, Paris; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro; Neue Galerie, Aachen; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Bridgestone Museum, Tokyo; and the Leo Castelli Gallery.

In Black Castle, 1987, the structure of what seems to be a previously imposing castle is depicted by Damian using oil and gouache on cardboard. Devoid of the human presence, the solitary ruin is painted in shades of white, black and grey, accentuating a sense of contemplation. The colour black was used by Damian in many of his works to represent tombs, sarcophaguses or the night - mystical elements reinforcing the artist’s inquiry into the metaphysical.