Gene Tanta is a Romanian-born American artist and poet working across painting, poetry, and translation. His practice explores migration, color, and the politics of language, treating translation as a material act—between images and words, cultures and selves.

Tanta maintains an independent studio practice in Illinois. He is the founder of Found Art Studio in Mt. Zion, where he offers appointment-only private showings and small workshops; he also meets by appointment in his Urbana and Chicago studios. He is currently immersed in an abstract color-theory series in oil, taking Rothko and Albers as touchstones while inspecting how red—as hue, value, and temperature—reshapes the perception of form.

His work has been shown internationally and featured in literary and arts journals. A two-time Fulbright grantee to Romania, Tanta holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He has taught at institutions including Columbia College Chicago and the University of Iowa, and he continues to lead workshops that bridge image and text.

Across media, Tanta returns to a central question: how can art remain free while still belonging? The answer, for him, is a daily practice where color, language, and memory negotiate new forms of care.