IOMO Gallery

Opening this Thursday: Emma Păvăloaia’s solo exhibition “Just Out of Reach”

“Pavaloaia uses the ordinary. Be it a living room, a flower vase, a diamond (or is it a meal?) as a threshold between the mundane and the metaphysical. She reflects fondly of her old neighbourhood, “Blocuri,” through a funerary statue. Nature arrives to move it somewhere safer. A guardian angel has been locked away in a box for safekeeping. Just present enough but equally inaccessible. A diamond sits on a plate. The Last Meal, as she puts it. The final course of a civilisation that chose material wealth over spiritual sustenance.” –

Join us for the opening reception this Thursday, June 18, starting at 6PM.

Justin Liam O’Brien (b. 1991, New York) is a narrative painter whose distinctive figurative works explore identity, isolation, sadness, and humor through scenes drawn from everyday life and historical painting.

In Confounded Youth (2025) and Snare (2023), O’Brien depicts social interactions and moments of physical proximity that evoke loneliness and emotional ambivalence. Characterized by rounded forms inherited from the artist’s background in 3D animation, his compositions create psychologically charged spaces where intimate emotions often appear at a tipping point.

Presented in In The Body Lies The Truth at IOMO Gallery, curated by .

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1/4: Justin Liam O’Brien, Confounded Youth, 2025, Snare, 2023
Courtesy of the artist, Semiose (Paris), and Newchild (Antwerp)

2-3/5-6: Installation views, In The Body Lies The Truth, IOMO Gallery, Bucharest, 2026

“I wanted to bring together moments that seemed outside of the ‘social performance’, moments of quiet, of ‘resting faces’, where figures are almost caught unaware that they are being observed.”

in conversation with on the vision behind In the Body Lies the Truth at IOMO Gallery. Link in bio.

IN THE BODY LIES THE TRUTH
14 May – 13 June 2026

Billy Gibney
Arthur Lemonier
Sam Lipp
Graham Silveria Martin
Alejandra Moros
Justin O’Brien
Nathan Ritterpusch
Zoe Schweiger
Liu Xin

Featured images:
3: Arthur Lemonier, The Lake Can Hold Us, 2026 (detail)
4: Installation view, In The Body Lies The Truth, IOMO Gallery, Bucharest, 2026