( January the 1st 1973 Oradea, Romania - 25th November 2005 Oradea )

His interest toward the visual fine arts started in the '90s; in the years 1992-1995 he was the student of the "Francisc Hubic" School of Fine Arts, and then between 1995 - 2000 he was an undergraduate in the "Ioan Andreescu" Academy of Visual Arts, painting department, Cluj - Napoca.

His years of study are to be considered as very productive, as results of which, besides the passionate thematic and figurative seeking, already by at the beginning of his artistic career, he can actually step up with a coherent, well - worked out and - established style.

His professional surrounding welcomes his works with amazement. He was forced to accept this during his years of faculty; however very few could see the real motive of this perplex, the reason of which wasn't anything else, but the reluctant confrontation with reality.

The concept of reality of the art criticism seems more and more trivial, and glides as an indifferent soft cliche before the eyes of the art - seekers. However, we are not talking about a cliche now, but about the reality of Jakab Elek by which one cannot pass with pink illusions.

The artistic reality of Jakab Elek grabs one's interest because he could depict life with such a liberality and jauntiness that staggers- but strokes you down at the same time with all these contrasts: pathos - kiss, tensness - opportunism, needs - passion, defiance - collapse, love, devotion - passing.

Jakab Elek was able to tune himself emotionally with staggering penetration and effectivness to those junctions, which marked, - and still mark His life, our lives; and would provide a visible form to his works from his deep experiences with the same intensive gestures.

His diligence, his intensive formal and subject-matter did not remain unfruitful - they moulded him into such an artist who, as till young, could wander in the realm of the visiual creation with such maturity and ease, that offers the viewer a liberating feeling, as well.

The artistic world started to discover him as a Transylvanian artist who raged the interest of the organizers from the Florence Biennale; after the tragic death in the midst of his life and on the rise of his career, we could only hope that our small artistic public life will do that noble gesture, as well - to discover Him once, even if it missed the living artist, it could do that post - mortem.
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" The theme of my art deals with the questions of human existence, and its existential status, which I try to depict stylistically with the synthesis of spontaneity of the expressive figurativeness and with the intellectualism of the conceptual approach. " J.Elek