Matei Dragomir (b. 2000, Romania) works with fragments, decontextualizing and recontextualizing them as a means of interrogating and renegotiating his experience of daily life, underscoring moments of stillness and beauty. The contemporary human condition is largely underpinned by feeling overwhelmed due to the sea of information that flows over us everyday – we are subjected to a stream of information and stimulation seemingly at all times. Dragomir seeks to resist these flows by taking moments and images, removing them from their contexts and reproducing them in painterly forms – both figurative and abstract. Although his figurative work often references commercial contexts, he creates critical distance between these references and his work by manipulating faces and bodies. Through lighting, framing and rescaling, Dragomir underscores their emotional depth; a depth which they are deprived of in conventional, commercial frameworks. He takes these fragments and revitalizes them, conjuring a sense of beauty and instilling them with a certain softness and intimacy. Similarly, his colorfield works use visual fragments taken from nature, isolating the calmness experienced when gazing at a subtle plane of color. He aims to reproduce the sense of stillness offered by these planes, starkly contrasting with the dynamic and hurried pace of his daily life. Dragomir invites viewers to reflect on these momentary fragments and consider the beauty and tenderness of their ephemerality.