Born in Sălsig, Maramureș County, in 1963, the artist is a graduate of the Painting Department in 2005 from the North University of Baia Mare. In 2011, he obtained a Ph.D. in Visual Arts from the West University of Timișoara with the thesis The Dynamics of Aesthetic Orientations in Contemporary Painting. A laureate of the Grand Annual Prize for Visual Arts in 2023, awarded by the City Hall and Local Council of Baia Mare in association with the Baia Mare Branch of U.A.P.R., on the occasion of the ceremonies celebrating the Day of the Plastic Artist of Baia Mare (May 5), painter and Professor Dr. Dorel Topan has worked as a museum curator, scenographer, and religious scene painter.
Prepared by numerous cultural evocations, Dorel Topan’s painting appears as an extension of discussions about the relationship between the modern ambiance, overloaded with material symbols, and the style of the era. In his work, within the type of hyperrealism practiced by Dorel Topan, we do not witness a mechanical reproduction of the real; rather, the artist’s attitude is controlled by a subjective state. The real object is subjected to an intense chromatic flow that essentially alters the attributes of the visible world. (Constantin Ionescu Prut)
