Olt is often found in the works of Ștefan Câltia, references to it being made in various variants and periods. The river that is part of the painter's childhood and the memory of the village of Șona was brought to the exhibition Pe Olt in two approaches: that of the concrete world and that of experience.

The concrete world of the village of Șona of yesteryear is the one closely linked to Olt through the daily activities where it was irreplaceable. It is brought in the form of photographs found in Șona, testimonies of moments such as watering cattle, washing wool and hemp, washing clothes, fishing - some of the actions archived by Diana Iabrașu within the project Șona - Memory of a place and recovered in the village imaginary through exhibition. On a closer look, it can be noted that in the integration of the natural activities of those times in the exhibition, the gestures of tenderness that were otherwise rare and sincere are also remembered. The audio testimonies are stories spread by word of mouth and they can be listened to during the journey created in the exhibition. The QR codes refer to audio recordings of a dialogue with the artist about Olt and travel as well as a conversation between villagers about fishing.

The experience of the trip to Olt narrated and visually recreated in the atmosphere of a courtyard converted into an exhibition hall by the artist's foundation, becomes a floating trip, through an installation consisting of a suspended old boat. The land is metaphorically divided into the area under the water and the area above the water level on the riverbed. The plants in the old boat are like the leitmotifs of the bouquets from the creation of Ștefan Câlția that appear and reappear in different forms, as well as in the key work of the exhibition that bears the same name – On the river Olt.

The journey in the exhibition takes you from the oil painting of the artist Ștefan Câlţia to the sculptural monumentality of the old boat confronted with reality. Thus the memory, the myth, the story take shape in reality and the atmosphere of floating through Olt is believably shaped from metaphor to concrete.

Curator, Cristiana Ursache