In a global landscape of polarization and sociopolitical divisions, Georges Mazilu’s surrealist paintings reflect tensions between tradition and uncertainty, humanity and automation, repression and freedom. This review explores how Mazilu’s paintings articulate ethical dilemmas that permeate contemporary business life. Through symbolic composition and chromatic dissonance, his work engages with fractured moral landscapes shaped by moral imagination (Taylor and Ladkin Reference Taylor and Ladkin2009), surveillance capitalism (Zuboff Reference Zuboff, Longhofer and Winchester2023), and relational ethics (Grosser and Moon Reference Grosser and Moon2019). Mazilu’s work comments on and reflects tensions between autonomy and manipulation, mechanization, and humanity, which are foundational to ethical inquiry in organizational life. The review contributes to the emerging intersection of art-based inquiry and business ethics by demonstrating how surrealist aesthetics, rooted in post-socialist historical memory, fosters ethical awareness.
While business ethics scholarship has traditionally relied on normative models, stakeholder theory, or deontological frameworks, it has seldom explored aesthetic experience and affective intensity as catalysts for ethical reflection. The review addresses that gap by proposing that surrealist art, interpreted through affect theory and Deleuzian aesthetics, is a pedagogical force that unsettles moral assumptions and activates ethical imagination. Instead of offering fixed principles, Mazilu’s paintings provoke affect-laden encounters, engaging viewers with moral complexity. Building on Hjorth’s (Reference Hjorth2022) call to affirm the art’s aesthetic “eventness” in business ethics and on Deleuze’s notion of art as an event of becoming, we argue that the symbolic contradictions and emotional dissonance in Mazilu’s paintings open a generative space for rethinking ethical agency beyond calculative or compliance-driven models. Mazilu’s art unsettles assumptions and invites imaginative reconfiguration as ethical pedagogy. Methodologically, we adopt an interpretive approach rooted in affective hermeneutics and symbolic analysis, drawing on art-based inquiry (Taylor and Ladkin Reference Taylor and Ladkin2009), affect theory (Hjorth Reference Hjorth2022), and Deleuzian aesthetics.
Also, including Rethorst’s (Reference Rethorst2023) concept of “moral density,” this review proposes that Mazilu’s surrealist aesthetics amplify ethical insight by synthesizing creativity and complexity. Instead of reinforcing static ethical guidelines, Mazilu’s art offers metaphors, urging a move beyond compliance-driven ethics toward a more profound, emotionally engaged ethical reflexivity (Hjorth Reference Hjorth2022; Creed et al. Reference Creed, Taylor and Hudson2020).
Though Mazilu’s oeuvre invites engagement with contemporary ethical concerns, including political instability, digital alienation, feminist critique, and historical trauma, the review highlights two tensions structuring Mazilu’s aesthetic and ethical vision: autonomy versus manipulation and humanity versus mechanization. Rural memory, feminine figures, or time symbolism illustrate these central dilemmas. By analyzing these tensions, we provide conceptual clarity and show how Mazilu’s symbolic universe fosters reflection on business ethics in an age of algorithmic control, aesthetic fatigue,Footnote 1 and moral complexity.
ART IN AN AGE OF ETHICAL CRISIS
Mazilu’s surrealist narratives resonate with România’s current crossroads between authoritarian nostalgia and democratic pluralism. Against a global backdrop of war, climate crisis, digital alienation, and populism (Elsner, Atkinson, and Zahidi Reference Elsner, Atkinson and Zahidi2025), his hybrid figures, shaped by the socialist past, stage enduring tensions between control and freedom, tradition and transformation, offering a visual grammar for navigating political dilemmas and the ethical paradoxes of organizational life.
Mazilu’s lush but ominous palette, where luminous pastels clash with encroaching shadow, evokes the moral ambiguity between profit and principle. Compositional choices isolate characters in mechanical stillness or place them in tender dyads, evoking alienation and the yearning for communal resilience. Mazilu critiques the dehumanization wrought by modern economies through wheels, wires, and prosthetics: figures once grounded in labor are now hybridized, prompting reflection on the ethical toll of algorithmic work environments. These mechanized bodies speak to organizational dilemmas: surveillance capitalism (Zuboff Reference Zuboff, Longhofer and Winchester2023), autonomy erosion, and ethical dissonance under technocratic control (Hsieh et al. Reference Hsieh, Lange, Rodin and Wolf-Bauwens2018). Mazilu’s surrealist canvases do more than mirror these conditions—they provoke business ethicists and practitioners to confront the hidden costs of efficiency and rediscover moral imagination in a mechanized age.
SYMBOLIC AMPLIFIERS OF ETHICAL DISSONANCE: FROM RURAL MEMORY TO DIGITAL CONTROL
Georges Mazilu, known for his unique blend of Renaissance-inspired figures and surreal, abstract themes, employs rural imagery as a symbolic amplifier of ethical tensions between autonomy and external control. Discovering traces of a still-existent rural world in Mazilu’s work evokes a connection to a closed, self-sufficient era reminiscent of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with complex juridical levers. Mazilu’s canvases emerge as parables of a life lived within confines but teeming with vibrancy. The depiction of everyday elements—animals, plants, and scenes familiar to local people, in Figure 1 and Figure 2, bridges the past with the present, anchoring his work in a timeless, primordial reality. Mazilu’s pastoral references evoke self-sufficient, pre-modern life, now overshadowed by dehumanizing constraints, a tension reflected in his characters’ melancholy expressions.
Figure 1: Georges Mazilu, Le garçon à la fourche, 2011
Note. Courtesy of the artist (www.mazilu.fr.).
Mazilu’s hybrid figures, in Figure 3, fusing bodies with wires, rivets, and prosthetics, critique how modern economies corrupt identity and reduce autonomy, echoing concerns about labor instrumentalization in algorithmic systems (Zuboff Reference Zuboff, Longhofer and Winchester2023).
Figure 4, La marionnettiste, crystallizes the autonomy–manipulation dynamic through self-reflexive entrapment: while the figure grasps puppet strings, an abstract form erupts from the chest, signaling interior resistance and unresolved control. As workers enmeshed in algorithmic systems, Mazilu’s figures reveal complex, turbulent selves behind carefully orchestrated exteriors.
Mazilu erases distinguishing features, presenting individuals who exist ambiguously within absurd spaces. Humanity and even animals are struggling to save themselves from an impasse. Without mobility, they turn to mechanical supports—protective shields and movement mechanisms. The characters’ reliance on mechanical aids questions the balance between human essence and technological dependence. Mazilu’s characters, engaged in life’s myriad roles and relationships, confront external pressures threatening their humanity, casting a shadow of dehumanization. This transformation under duress, highlighted by the folding wings of angels at dusk, symbolizes abandonment and a collective struggle against an unseen adversary. Angel-like figures from Figure 5 convey collective sorrow and resistance. Their mirrored forms and intimate dyads suggest unity amid an ethical impasse.
This ethical impasse between mechanical constraint and affective longing sets the stage for Mazilu’s feminine figures, whose presence reorients the conversation from systemic control to relational ethics. As organizations grapple with emotional disconnection and instrumental rationality, these figures invite reflection on care, embodiment, and the possibility of restoring moral agency through aesthetic and affective dehumanization.
FEMININE SYMBOLISM AND THE RECLAIMING OF HUMAN ESSENCE
Against the backdrop of mechanized figures and dystopian immobility, Mazilu’s feminine figures are symbolic correctives, illustrating a possible return to human essence and relational ethics in response to dehumanizing systems. These figures are symbolic anchors, reasserting embodied ethics and resisting commodification through relational presence and aesthetic vitality. They contrast with rigid male characters whose hybrid bodies speak of decay and dependency. In the current context, where we see gender equality and care ethics as correctives to corporate excess (Grosser and Moon Reference Grosser and Moon2019), Mazilu’s femininity becomes an ethical proposition.
Femininity is a force of liberation, counterbalancing rigidity through evocative portrayals advocating purity and essence. The female nude in Figure 6, a portrait in a long line of paintings, imposes that atmosphere of luxe, calme et volupté. These nudes transcend aesthetic roles, symbolically countering the rigidity of mechanized male figures and reclaiming ethical vitality. The naked body, in search of the first purity, is an expression of liberation, of unchaining. In a world of endless torment, beauty can provide redemption.
Figure 6: Georges Mazilu, Susanne et les vieillards, 2023
Note. Courtesy of the artist (www.mazilu.fr.).
On another level of analysis, that of the portraits, the fragility of female beauty becomes an object of adoration and, in not a few cases, of reverence before the classical masters. Among these portraits, we find Tracy, in Figure 7, whether she is a Chevalier or not, peu importe … car ce qui restent sont des filles et leurs perles. Et pas seulement! Mazilu adorned the feminine apparitions Par la calligraphie des enluminures with a goldsmith’s passion, once again proving attachment to those bygone days. This symbolic renewal in contemporary business ethics discourse aligns with enhanced advocacy for care ethics, gender equality, and humanistic practices as necessary counters to the excesses of profit-driven corporate cultures (Grosser and Moon Reference Grosser and Moon2019).
Figure 7: Georges Mazilu, La fille à la boucle d’oreille (d’après Vermeer), 2020
Note. Courtesy of the artist (www.mazilu.fr.).
Mazilu’s characters move along the time axis, sliding on a scooter, bike, skate, or surfboard (Figure 8 and Figure 9). In Mazilu’s imagined cosmology, characters ride unicorns and roll through time while “The Clockman” looms above—an allegory for technocratic time discipline and resistance to acceleration. This vision echoes ethical anxieties around algorithmic governance, behavioral prediction, and identity manipulation (Zuboff Reference Zuboff, Longhofer and Winchester2023). Instead of resolving these tensions, Mazilu’s work dramatizes their persistence, offering what Rethorst (Reference Rethorst2023) might call a morally dense encounter. His grotesque, allegorical universe activates ethical perception because it refuses normative closure. The absence of “wisdom,” symbolized by the blank book and vacant stares, mirrors the emptiness of performative ethics in compliance-driven corporate systems, calling for imaginative moral inquiry instead.
Mazilu’s narrative weaves through time, employing objects, balls, or eggs as symbols of hope and renewal, hinting at a possible return to origins and a rebalancing of the world through feminine influence and labor (in Figure 10 and Figure 11).
The next metaphor suggests the arms of Justice that symbolically carry two buckets in Figure 12. Finely supported by long and delicate fingers, they point towards the backbone of the woman who carries the weight of the entire world on her stooped shoulders. Her effort and toil keep the world in balance. The elongated, conical hat and robe give the figure an almost otherworldly appearance. Light and shadow, the figure’s solemn and mask-like facial expression, convey a sense of contemplation and mystery.
Figure 12: Georges Mazilu, Untitled (Bihiku, Reference Bihikun.d .)
Note. Courtesy of the artist (www.mazilu.fr.).
In this world of subtle borders and movements, lights and shadows, in Figure 13 Mazilu’s art becomes a testament to the enduring power of beauty and art to transcend boundaries and inspire change from Vânjuleț (the artist’s birthplace) to the world and back.
Mazilu’s artistic evolution—from the repressive confines of socialist-era România to the expressive freedom he found in France—parallels the nation’s current crossroads between authoritarian nostalgia and democratic pluralism. Tismăneanu (Reference Tismăneanu2019) highlights how the moral and cultural aftermath of communism continues to shape ethical imagination across Eastern Europe, revealing how historical trauma and ideological control leave enduring marks on personal and collective agency. Mazilu’s surrealist aesthetics emerge from this tension. His fragmented, partially mechanized figures capture a haunting record of compromised autonomy and institutional manipulation, ethical themes resonant with historical totalitarianism and contemporary business ethics. Building on this, Stern and Tismăneanu (Reference Stern and Tismăneanu2022) document how communist regimes instrumentalized culture and the arts to fabricate the collectivist ideal of the “new man,” subordinating individual creativity to ideological conformity. This systemic reduction of human agency echoes throughout Mazilu’s symbolic universe: his hybrid, puppet-like figures reflect the psychological and ethical toll of being molded by opaque control systems. Just as authoritarian regimes once suppressed differences to enforce uniformity, today’s algorithm-driven corporate structures risk reenacting similar forms of ethical flattening through surveillance, standardization, and instrumental rationality.
Mazilu’s work, therefore, does more than reflect on the past—it intervenes in the present. His surrealist critique foregrounds the fragile space between human dignity and mechanized constraint. In this way, Mazilu bridges art and business ethics, reminding us that the erosion of agency—whether by ideology or institutional logic—requires resistance and imaginative reparation.
Mazilu’s surrealist abstraction critiques the commodification of identity in market-driven economies, urging ethical commitments that preserve human dignity. Marionette imagery symbolizes tensions between autonomy and manipulation, paralleling corporate dilemmas around authenticity and greenwashing (Delmas and Burbano Reference Delmas and Burbano2011). His motifs of unity, relationality, and feminine symbolism offer pathways to resist dehumanization and fragmentation, aligning with feminist humanism in corporate ethics (Grosser and Moon Reference Grosser and Moon2019). Mazilu’s affect-rich aesthetic promotes moral imagination and critical reflection, confronting the ethical complexities of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff Reference Zuboff, Longhofer and Winchester2023) and highlighting the necessity of embracing ambiguity and relational ethics amid uncertainty.
Sam Hunter poetically captures Mazilu’s ability to articulate pictorial metaphors of human existence’s precariousness and unpredictability, and so does Andre Brink, who highlights Mazilu’s capacity to venture beyond traditional surrealist imagery—an aesthetic “crossing over” into ethically rich, unexplored terrains (Turner Caroll Gallery Reference Gallery2008). Their observations reinforce how Mazilu’s surrealist ethics offer an innovative framework for confronting moral dilemmas in contemporary business practices, catalyzing ethical renewal within organizational contexts.
Mazilu’s surrealist art offers a distinctive methodological resource for empirical business ethics research. Le marionnettiste could be an affective stimuli in experimental designs exploring emotional and ethical responses in decision-making scenarios, surpassing traditional survey-based approaches, and enriching ethical leadership-training programs by encouraging affect-driven reflection, facilitating ethical imagination, and critical self-awareness among business practitioners.
Mazilu’s surrealist ethics challenge normative and compliance-driven business ethics by exposing stakeholder vulnerabilities under algorithmic control and the ethical treatment of workers. His symbolic critiques affirm relational ethics via feminine imagery, offering an affective, reflexive framework that moves beyond rigid normative guidelines. It urges organizations to rethink ethical agency amidst mechanization and technological dependency. Mazilu’s art, thus, is an ethical compass, prompting businesses and scholars alike to reimagine ethical agency amid mechanized uncertainties and algorithmic controls. In times of national reckoning, Mazilu’s surrealist vision offers caution and hope: a call to reclaim our shared humanity across wires and wings and choose the future of governance and the ethical shape of the world we wish to inhabit.
Alexandra-Codruţa Bîzoi (alexandra.bizoi@e-uvt.ro, corresponding author) is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, West University of Timișoara, România. She holds a PhD in finance (awarded Magna Cum Laude) and specializes in business ethics, behavioral tax compliance, and supply chain management. She teaches Romanian and French courses at the undergraduate and master’s levels. Fluent in five languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish), she contributes to interdisciplinary research at the intersection of ethics, digital transformation, and cultural narratives in business. Her recent publications explore artistic and ethical dimensions in contemporary society and AI-driven productivity tools.
Cristian-Gabriel Bîzoi is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, West University of Timișoara, România. His research interests include supply chain management, risk management, business ethics, project management, and innovation management. He played a key role in implementing the Moodle e-learning platform, facilitating a seamless transition to digital education during the pandemic. He has worked with the Regional Development Agency, evaluating EU-funded projects. His recent publications explore the ethical, economic, and cognitive implications of digital transformation and corruption in global logistics and education.
