Official Statement: On April 14th, 2015 the Romanian artist Costin Chioreanu will present his work for the critically acclaimed album “At War With Reality” by the Swedish metal band AT THE GATES and his first artbook publication “Magic As A Golden Mean” at the Bewitched Café in Dortmund, Germany.
Jens Prueter, Head Of A&R at Century Media Records and rampant record collector, will play a special DJ set to accompany Costin’s visual world. The opening party on April 14th, 2015 will run from 6pm to 10pm. The exhibition will run until the end of April.
AT THE GATES vocalist and lyricist Tomas Lindberg: “The concept of ‘At War with Reality’ is based on the literary genre called ‘Magic Realism’. The main style within this genre is the notion that ‘reality’ is ever-changing, and needs to be constantly re-discovered and re-conquered. We felt that Costin’s artwork style would be the perfect visual contribution to this album, so he became the natural choice…”
And AT THE GATES guitarist and main songwriter Anders Björler further explained: “I got in touch with Costin a few years back. I was immediately impressed with his dark and original style. He collaborated on some T-shirt designs for AT THE GATES as well as designing the album artwork for my Instrumental Project. We realized pretty early on that his style would accompany the music and the concept perfectly.”
Additionally, Costin Chioreanu checked in with the following words:”I have been waiting for this album for almost 20 years and it’s the biggest honor for me to illustrate it – As there is no greater achievement for a dreamer than the moment when the dream becomes reality. “At War With Reality” is by far the most complex visual story I have ever created, from all points of view. From the very first moment the band presented the concept, I found it extremely stunning and at the same time super-challenging. I like to think that visual art and music are tools to explore our minds – to create, to discover and to push the limits. AT THE GATES, one of my all-time favorite Metal bands, offered me a chance to explore a new dimension.”
The AT THE GATES album “At War With Reality” came out in October 2014 and entered the official Swedish album charts on #3 and German charts on #25.
The Finnish label Svart Records is launching Costin’s first book publication the “Magic As A Golden Mean” at Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland in April 2015.
Comments the artist himself, “This is my first book, and it contains a fine selection of mixed media arts I made in the last years. After 12 years of working with bands, booking agencies, festivals, record labels, promoters, and studios, I realized the common denominator of the events in my creative life is indicating actually the golden mean. Working with same passion and dedication for dark and light entities made me realize that I am always the one in the middle, and I will always need both sides in order to evolve to a higher state of understanding of the world around me. So, the artwork selection was divided in three big chapters – one is related to darkness, one is related to light, while the closing one is related to magic and the middle path. So, in my case, the ‘golden mean’ represents the magic of manifestation, the desirable middle between two extremes, marked by darkness and light.”