Costea Vlad-Laurean (b. 1998) is a Romanian sculptor based in Cluj-Napoca, working at the intersection of experimental materiality and symbolic narrative. A graduate of the University of Art and Design Cluj (UAD), his practice explores contemporary myth-making through hybrid sculptural entities that oscillate between ritual object and living presence.
Using welded steel armatures coated in hand-shaped cardboard, silicone and, in some cases, integrated light systems, Costea constructs totemic figures that evoke both vulnerability and resilience. His ongoing series Inner Tribes investigates identity as a plural, shifting territory, embodied through warrior-like silhouettes with floating masks — monuments to unseen emotional ancestries.
In 2025, he was part of the Romanian Pavilion delegation at the London Design Biennale, where his approach to material storytelling gained international visibility. Recent works such as Promethea reinterpret classical myths through a contemporary lens, proposing light not as divine punishment, but as a shared offering.
Rooted in sculptural tradition yet radically open to improvisation and transformation, his work positions itself between the archaic and the futuristic, questioning what it means to give form to something both fragile and eternal.
