The new exhibition at WIN Gallery is under the conceptual realm of the Fruit of Knowledge, which we are all invited to discover alongside other symbols, ideas, and concepts in the works of Marijana and Relu Bițulescu. The exhibition, opened on June 5, 2025, brings to the public’s attention the idea of knowledge through art, implicitly through the works of the two artists, renowned local creators in multiple media, nationally and internationally awarded, who actively contribute to maintaining artistic creation at a high level. In their characteristic spirit, a refined, elegant spirit, which addresses various universal themes but always in a personal tone that appeals to satire in order to highlight precisely the essence of the works, Marijana and Relu sustain the dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity, between symbol and experiment. 

The Mystery that Ripens in Silence 

For WIN Gallery, the Fruit of Knowledge collection developed naturally, following the exhibition Mystery in Bloom, this time, however, the gallery’s proposal being to access, with curiosity, the creative and encyclopedic universe of the two artists. 

Starting precisely from the work entitled Fruit of Knowledge by Relu Bițulescu, the exhibition opens by accessing the Adamic myth, but in a playful key that arouses curiosity. This fruit is represented by an apple, but what surprises, first of all, is the fact that it has been consumed down to the core, and secondly, that the inside of the apple is made up of texts. A perfect visual metaphor for the idea of the fruit-of-knowledge, cast in a satirical light precisely by the aspect of a fruit eaten with appetite, entirely. How much appetite Adam and Eve had when they ate the forbidden fruit, we will never know, the only certainty remaining the Fall. The discourse built by the artists aims at knowledge through art; Marijana and Relu traverse not only biblical themes in the exhibited works, their compositions being explorations of spaces and periods from Byzantine to Egyptian, from the Phanariots to the court of the kings of Spain or even Greek myths. 

In silence, quietly, the two artists show similarities especially in terms of the creativity with which they use unconventional materials. Marijana composes tapestries with the help of textile threads but goes beyond the limits of this medium through collages in which she incorporates other materials, such as the work Overpopulated City. 

The work remains framed in the artist’s imaginary by golden background elements, also found in the Cultural Migration cycle, this time the lower register of the work depicting precisely "overpopulation". At Relu’s, the triptych Beizadele includes surprising metallic elements, such as sheets cut by the artist to form not only the clothing part of the three characters but also the pictorial surface of the portraits of two of the figures. Moreover, one of the three men has a crown on which real coins are stamped, the aspect of this triptych being one that extremely faithfully renders the conceptual basic idea of the work: forms without substance, sheet metal characters, lacking character, under the rule of unfounded wealth. 

Anatomy of the Fruit of Knowledge

Throughout the collection, we find the forbidden fruit, in different compositions, either explicit or implicit. In the works Suspicion of Adam, Temptation or Anna has apples, the apple is visible; in the first two it contains within itself the potential of the entire history, of everything that has followed, in fact, until today. In the apple depicted between Adam and Eve lies also the story of this exhibition, the plurality of meanings surrounding us just as the fruits surround Anna in the third painting. 

Explicitly, the other works also contain the seeds of these interpretation tracks, especially the collage The Last Supper, in which Relu Bițulescu places on Jesus and the apostles’ table a bowl lined with texts, full of typography letters. Wood predominates, the spoons being arranged concentrically equally – except for one, which is more forward. Precisely this slightly different position betrays the identity of the owner of the spoon and reminds us of betrayal, and implicitly, of the subsequent moment of forgiveness of sins. Judas’s spoon is the same as the others in every respect, which emphasizes precisely that within ourselves lies the power of salvation or betrayal. The gesture, his position, are the only things that differ and which inscribe him in a different direction. 

These creative contrasts predominate in the artists’ works, as we see in Marijana’s tapestry Infanta with the dog, where Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain appears alongside a dog. Through a background that combines elegant vegetal elements and curved lines in a collage, the tapestry remains mysterious through its composition, including the infanta’s dress being made of multiple different parts. The artist pays tribute to Velázquez, from whom she takes the theme and reworks it through the textile material executed in haute lisse technique in a new composition, where the dog can also be a reference to the famous painting Las Meninas. A symbol of loyalty and fidelity, the dog from the famous Spanish painting maintains its protective role even today, appearing this time next to Maria Teresa, the paternal sister of Margaret Teresa. 

Journey through the Signs of an Unseen World

This journey to which Marijana and Relu Bițulescu invite us is very well framed in the contemporary landscape, revisiting myths and classical themes in this unconventional key being timely. 

The artists render fundamental aspects through formal games, through unexpected superpositions, as we also see in the painting Eve’s Arrogance, where the split produced by her decision to tempt Adam is visible in the painting through the red stripe that separates them. In Marijana’s Annunciation, the biblical scene of extraordinary beauty is suggested by the figure lacking details but encapsulating the essence of the moment in which Archangel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary her pregnancy. Keeping the positioning described by the Bible and also found in church canons, the author uses chromatics and schematization to approach an illustration that probably would have pleased Dante, precisely because it does not over-explain or over-represent the Divine – but renders through the essential, through senses, through a suggested intuitive visual. 

The path takes us through many registers, Relu’s woods being also of a tale, detached from fairy tales where the Golden Forest and the Silver Forest can exist. The artist uses sticks of wood in the composition of works that address sylvan themes or titles, which precisely make the reference from our real space to the one imagined by the author. As he also does in Redivivus, where the hope of a new beginning, of rebirth, is read in the blossoming branches coming from the right side of the painting. 

Thus, through their rich and subtle visual language, Marijana and Relu Bițulescu invite us to step into a universe of signs and symbols, where the seen and the unseen intertwine in a permanent dialogue. The journey through these signs becomes an experience of discovery, in which each viewer can carve their own path towards deep, personal and collective meanings. In this space of the unseen world, art becomes an essential bridge between real and imaginary, between myth and contemporaneity, offering us the fruit of knowledge waiting to be consumed. 

In the end, “Fruit of Knowledge” is not just a concept or a symbol, but an invitation to exploration and openness. At WIN Gallery, this invitation comes alive through the creations of Marijana and Relu Bițulescu, who challenge us to look beyond the surface, to decipher the signs and to penetrate the essence of what it means to know. Their exhibition thus becomes a space of dialogue between past and present, between myth and reality, in which each viewer is called to find their own fruit of understanding. It is a call to curiosity, to reflection, and to the understanding that true knowledge is not obtained through submission, but through assuming the freedom to research, interpret, and transform the world in which we live. 

True knowledge is not a point of arrival, but a fruit that constantly matures in and through questions. 

Ph.D. Researcher Andrei FĂȘIE