Alexander Tinei

Alexander Tinei (b. 1967, Căușeni, Moldova) studied at the Chișinău Repin State College of Fine Arts between 1988 and 1991 before establishing his career abroad. He has lived and worked in Budapest, Hungary, for many years, and is regarded by fellow artists and critics as a founding figure of the Moldovan realist school of painting.

Tinei works primarily in figurative painting and drawing, alongside collage, installation, and repainted photography. Rather than painting from direct observation, he sources imagery from found photographs and media circulating online, repositioning anonymous figures within new pictorial contexts. His portraits are distinguished by pale, muted skin marked with colorful — most often blue — vein-like, stigmatic signs, giving the figures a melancholic, dream-like presence. Recurring themes include the relationship between the body and time, childhood, tattoos, and the way private moments become globally visible on the internet. His early work of the late 2000s set high-contrast pale figures against dark, often black backgrounds; from around 2013–2014 his palette opened toward stronger color and more fractured paint surfaces.

Tinei began exhibiting internationally in 2003, with early shows in Budapest, Amsterdam, and Belgrade, followed by solo exhibitions at Erika Deák Gallery in Budapest (from 2006 onward), Ana Cristea Gallery in New York (2010), the Frissiras Museum in Athens (2012), Ando Gallery in Tokyo, and galleries in Paris, Prague, and Ortisei. He participated in the Prague Biennale in 2009 and 2011 and in the group exhibition Body Language at the Saatchi Gallery, London (2013–2014), among other group shows at institutions including the Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, MODEM in Debrecen, and the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň. In 2022–2023 the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague presented Funny Games, curated by Otto M. Urban — his largest solo exhibition to date. In 2026 Marc Straus Gallery in New York presented his solo exhibition Thirty Pieces of Sun.

His works are held in public and institutional collections including the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest, the Saatchi Collection in London, and the SØR Rusche Collection in Berlin. Tinei continues to live and work in Budapest.