ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a nostalgic: through my work
I aim to regain the lost feeling of presence, typical of the analogue
era, when life was slower paced and even feelings seemed to last longer.
I
create images that at a first glance seem “wrong” to arrest and induce a
state of contemplation in the viewer to help her/him to regain the
feeling of presence and calmness, that has become extremely rare in the
schizophrenic times we live in.
I shoot analogue film
multiple exposures only, so I use the same portion of film at least
twice to capture more images instead of one. I see the end result only
when the film gets developed. Everything happens in the camera and
there is no Photoshop manipulation.
I don't care about visual information accuracy - so dear to
megapixels -, what matters to me is the atmosphere. For this purpose, I
even manipulate the film in the shooting and developing process to
accentuate the grain to achieve a more painterly effect.
The
inner conflict that I experienced in my personal life, growing up
between two opposite realities, the Romanian communist and the Italian
capitalist ones and my need for a third reality that synthesizes my
conclusions of what is good of each one of the two, translates into my
natural instinct of shooting multilayered photographs.
By
immortalizing the details of the scene that attract my attention I
create a condensed experience of finally feeling “at home”, in a
reality that does not need retouching.
For me home is where there is time to find and contemplate beauty, whether if related to a place or a person.
My
work has been defined by art critic Lorenzo Belenguer as “romantic
conceptualism”: Personal yet Universal concepts wrapped in exquisite
beauty.
BEYOND THE SELF(IE) PROJECT STATEMENT
In a world characterized by a
fast paced consumption of digital images, especially selfies, that
insist on the obsessive portrayal of humans as mere bodies, it is very
hard not to be affected by the overwhelming social anxiety, in the form
of a ceaseless need for instant gratification.
Through this
project I challenge this trend first of all through the choice of the
medium: shooting analogue means to adopt a slow paced traditional
process that allows us to see the end result only when the film gets
developed.
Secondly, the subject, in this case a painter, is
portrayed overlaying the imaginary characters of her paintings, alter
egos that she uses as vehicles of expression for her emotions.
My
aim through Beyond the Self(ie) is to invite the viewer to see the
subjects beyond their physical presence, as creative micro cosmoses that
leave their mark into the world.
We are what we create.
