'Unknown Unknowns' by Christian Roncea at West End, The Hague

For the first solo exhibition in The Netherlands after graduating from the
 Royal Academy in The Hague, Christian Roncea (b.1998) made a body of all new work consisting of paintings, drawing and sculpture that together form a new direction in their practice. In Unknown Unknowns, Roncea explores a
 fascination for the history of European paintings in terms of perspective. The most recent series, Pillar Paintings, consists of vertical and slender-like canal houses, or the thin spaces in between front doors that merge houses in The Netherlands to each other. Drawing from a range of references from mythic obelisks to recent pop cultural happenings, his recent and past work feature an inner world plot to the narrative of the show that the viewer can gaze upon but remains unknown to their eyes. 

Christian Roncea (b.1998) is a Romanian/American artist and curator living and working in The Hague, NL. Graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague (KABK) in 2020 as a Bachelor in painting, Roncea has consistently developed a personal practice across different mediums. Their work is characterized by a fluid and versatile approach to painting which results in intricate and colorful representations of a fantastical underworld. The themes revolving around his work are part of an ever-growing research on trickster archetypes and their role in society. The interest in these subjects derive from a desire to demystify the perception of art, to disrupt outdated narratives and to question the Status Quo within the art world. Roncea’s curatorial practice
 comes as an extension of their artistic practice which started with the offsite guerrilla exhibition series Dharma Initiatives (2020) to more recent curatorial projects such as Corporate stoner (2022) and Nothing Sacred (Ongoing). 

— Jesse van der Tuuk