Born in the village of Aspra, Vima Mica commune, Maramureş County, Aurel Dan is a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts “Ion Andreescu” in Cluj Napoca. Until 1976 he worked as a technical designer at the Cavnic mining operation, and after 1980 as a drawing teacher in different localities in historical Maramureș, as well as at the Art School and Pedagogical High School in Sighetu Marmaţiei. His activity includes multiple exhibitions in the country and abroad, personal and collective, exposing on the walls of many galleries from Romania, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Poland, Ukraine or Hungary.
The winter of 2013, a moment projected in timelessness, a register frozen in time, with the architectural elements of the St. Stephen’s Tower and the emblematic churches in the Fortress Square, is the subject of Silence – time of contemplation. The air register dominates the largest surface of the work, in a specific brush with kneaded cough. St. Anthony Church, one of the oldest ecclesiastical buildings of the city dating back to the 16th century, was originally dedicated to St. Nicholas and functioned in the immediate vicinity of the charity center with the same name. Serving the Jesuit order and then the Minorite, the church belongs to the Roman Catholic cult, being proposed on the list of historical monuments since 1960’s.
