Costa Gorel

Germany, 1993

Costa Gorel works in the Austro-German Expressionist manner, continuing and reinterpreting the traditions of Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Ferdinand Hodler, and Emil Nolde.

In his works, Costa explores people’s emotional and psychological experiences, often expressing them through the character’s interaction with various spaces, objects, and elements of the fashion industry.

The artist works with oil and watercolor. The main visual techniques draw on the principles of the Baroque, the Renaissance, and interior design. Costa strives to incorporate elements of Gothic and Baroque architecture into the everyday life of his characters by using contemporary objects and artifacts from the fashion industry, which carry the DNA of architectural heritage. In his paintings, the artist references the “Mudéjar” style that emerged in Spain, where elements of Moorish, Gothic, and Renaissance art are closely interwoven. In the Mudéjar style, parody is expressed through architecture: the palatial sublime blends with the popular earthly. The artist uses sexuality and nudity as tools to show vulnerability, helplessness, passion, and a thirst for life.

The artist’s lyrical character is Orlando, endowed with a story from Virginia Woolf’s eponymous book and transported into our time with a reference to the memory of centuries lived. Orlando can be female, male, or a plurality in all kinds of incarnations. They try to find their place in this world and are also in an endless search for ineffable beau