Ioan Gânju

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Ioan Gânju belongs to the postwar generation of Romanian painters whose formation was shaped by the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, where he studied from 1962 to 1968 under Gheorghe Șaru and Alexandru Cumpătă. Active mainly in Iași, he developed a pictorial language marked by chromatic discipline, intuitive composition and a sustained interest in fantastic imagery. His works often turn towards vegetal forms, masks, ritual references and constructed interior worlds, placed between symbolic figuration, oneiric atmosphere and a restrained surrealising register. Between 1969 and 2000 he held nine solo exhibitions, including early presentations at Sala Kalinderu and Sala Apollo in Bucharest, while also participating in group exhibitions in The Hague, Prague, Madrid, Chișinău and Iași. In the context of the Romanian art market, his work remains associated with a personal visual vocabulary, resistant to strict stylistic classification and grounded in the expressive autonomy of colour.