Noian Art - Romania Osaka Expo 2025

Alexandru Ilea, known professionally as Noian, is an artist born in Maramureș, Romania, near the glass icons of the monastery of Nicula, the crosses of Stan Ioan Pătraș, the wooden churches that crown the hills, and the shepherd flutes whose echoes sometimes still resound through the air.

Following a childhood spent more through the screen than otherwise, he has directed his gaze outward in search for the raison d’être of things. After having slid an electric quill across a sensitive tablet leaving behind trails of pixels that shape idiosyncratic struggles, he got to lead a brush upon wavy sheets of glass, letting the paints embody, half according to their whim, faces with stories that have been passed down for thousands of years.

Just as a plant must convey the nutrients of the earth from the roots all the way to the leaves and petals, he has desired to play a part in filling all newly built nook and cranny of the present world with meanings and scaffolds of yore, making inherited treasures of healing shine through the liquid crystals of screens or the rays of projectors, not as petrified monuments, but as a living power that is reborn during each age, changing without changing.

You are welcome to encounter the stories of Transylvanian icons on glass or wood, the secrets of the tangled calligraphy that accompanies them, new digital manifestations inspired by these art forms, flute tunes heard from village elders or newly birthed from the heart’s overflowing, and ultimately some of the threads that unite all people across space and through time.