Costin Chioreanu

Costin Alexandru Chioreanu was born on March 13, 1982, in Bucharest, Romania. Even he was born in the capital, the first years of life were spend in a small village, together with his grandparents, where he learned the first tips to the ancestral wisdom and life by the rules of ancestors. Since he was a very little boy, he was extremely passioned by drawing. He begin to draw around the age of 3.

He returned in Bucharest in 1988 to begin the studies in his natal town. Few years after the Romanian Revolution (December 1989) he discovered his passion for heavy metal music, even at that moment the acess to this music and related records was kind of difficult, caused by the communist reminiscences over the local social networking. Concerning the fact at that time most of the cassettes with heavy metal, available in the romanian market, were looking deplorable (most of them were just copy of a copy of a bootleg and so was the cover as well - copied in extra poor black and white / sometimes color xerox) - the first connection in between the passion for drawing and his new passion for heavy metal - was to work to improve the image of his own collection. This way, everything started. Costin begin to buy a local magazine, called Heavy Metal Magazine , from where he could find record covers at the review section and inspire from tehre for re- making the covers of his cassettes, when teh quality was too low to see clearly with his own yes what actually teh cover wants to represent. The first handmade improved cover for his personal cover was crafted in 1994. Since then, he never stopped. Soon his friends got excited by his collection and this way he had the first very underground orders - from fans - in doing them hadnmade reproductions of logos, covers for their cassettes or even to paint jackets and tshirts.

Years passed and Costin discovered the passion for playing heavy metal. He learned how to play guitar (even he started as a drummer in a band formed by very young kids) and in 1997 he released the first demo with his own project Asmodeus. 2 years later he hits the stage of underworld metal clubs in Bucharest together with his band Retribution and release another demo. Since then Costin recorded lots of demos, played with a lot of Romanian bands, released albums, E.P.'s, soundtracks.

The first official works as metal illustrator and designer can be considered the cassette covers of Asmodeus demos (1997), Retribution demo (1999) or The Accused demo (2001) as also the logos for these bands.

But because at that time Twilight13media design studio wasn't alive yet, he preffered to mark as "official" the period which starts once with this name. In 2003, during his advanced studies at teh National University Of Arts from Bucharest, at the design section, he started Twilight13media as his own private designs tudio, realted only to heavy metal and rock music. The first years were quite heavy for Costin, as he was living in between daily job in advertising companies as art director, bands he was playing with, Univeristy Of Arts and Twilight13media. With all this hassle, the first important collaborations appear with bands like Centinex (Swe), Hecate Enthroned (UK), Nunslaughter (U.S.A.), and things start to move. Costin makes his first public exhibition in 2003 and continues in 2005 and 2007. From his very first exhibition he combined visual art with music, creating by himself or collaborating creatively together with oher msucians. He finish also the master degree in graphic design at teh National University Of Arts in 2007. In 2008 he filmed, during the last concerts with Rune Eriksen, the first official Mayhem video, for the track "Anti". Since then he developed his skills also concerning directing, filming and editing videos for bands.

Costin returns to the exhibition halls in 2011, with the most complex project to date, entitled "Where Purgatory Ends". The project was a combiantion of handamde illustrations, digital art, music and happening. The soundtrack for this project was created together with Rune Eriksen ( Aura Noir, ex-Mayhem, Ava inferi). "Where Purgatory Ends" was publicly presented in New York, Helsinki, Roadburn Festival (Tilburg), Alba Iulia, Bucharest and it presented a more developed materialization of Costin's interestes in spiritual life and becoming , being at the same time the starting point of a series of exhibitions related to same topics like: "Too Late For Rainbows" (2012 - Public exhibition at Roadburn festival - Holland) "There Are No Shadows On Our Maps” (2012 - Public exhibition at Dark Bombastic Evening Festival– Transylvania – Romania) , "The Five Phases Of Ioh" (2012 - Public exhibition and happening at Bucharest - during release event of Arktau Eos - Ioh Maera album), "Outside The Great Circle" art animation movie with soundtrack featuring David Tibet (Current 93), Attila Chsihar (Mayhem, Tormentor), Mirai Kawashima (Sigh), Kimmo Helen (Hexvessel) (2013 - Roadburn Festival - Tilburg Holland).

In 2013 Costin Chioreanu cellebrates 10 years anniversary of his design studio Twilight13media at Roadburn Festival and Neurotic Deathfest, with 2 exclusive art exhibitions, thsi time related only to extreme metal arts he did so far. After these 10 years he is one of world top designers, working with bands like At the Gates, Possessed, Ihsahn, Arcturus, The Devil's Blood, Aura Noir, Deicide, Ulver, Grave and many others all around the world, being as well Official artist for Roadburn festival, where he held until now 3 art exhibitions.