Vanessa, tell me about your sources and themes.
Architecture, primary forms and pure colors. I’m quite a big fan of Bauhaus, Memphis, and Studio Alchimia … what those people did, in my view, is simply beyond words. I see them more like “gods” who deserve veneration and to be taken as models. That’s where my inspiration for “crazy” shapes and colors comes from.
Tell me three essential things about art: the good, the bad and the ugly :)
the good: I firmly believe that art is the finest thing that has appeared in the life of mankind, one can do whatever one wants!
the bad: it’s a pity that only few people make art and those who don’t, consider us to be pitiable, lazy losers … well, sometime we are pitiable, but we are never lazy nor losers! Hahaha
the ugly:trading one’s stuff, I sometimes feel as if I’m behind Central (Cluj-Napoca), then this thirst again to prove how great we are in brushstrokes or, I assume, each with his instrument; and of course, let me not forget to mention this incredible envy, which lately grinds at everyone … to tell you the honest truth, I do not give a damn!
What are you working on at the moment?
On several things … it’s the way I am … I’ve been like that all my life, I cannot go for just one thing, with me, there are a thousand things to do all the time :))). For example, I am now making some of those lamps with neon; I’m preparing an entire scenography (ceramics, of course) for a future exhibition scheduled for next year (I still have nothing set up, but I’m preparing … I’m thinking, etc.) and some products for a fair, and that’s all.
What's your favorite color and why?
I think those who know me know how obsessed I am with color, so I cannot pick one favorite color I like them aaalllll!!! Well, maybe not quite all of them, I do not like those tints of khaki or brown … they make me think of something else 🙂
Techniques: stolen, learned, applied? How important is it to you to master them?
In my field, ceramics, this is not that important, everybody does the way they got used to, or the way it’s easiest to them, that’s the best thing about pottery, the fact that there is no recipe for success! It’s each with his own recipe. Okay, that is so until you get to glaze, where you clearly won’t mix white and blue in the hope of getting light blue, because it won’t yield the desired results, it will rather give you some dubious tint you never thought of getting 🙂 Here you have to know a little chemistry and if you really feel super artsy, you might experiment and see what happens.
Is there any recurrent element/symbol/theme in your works?
Geometry and striking colors; as I already said, I like simple/intersected/cutout shapes … and colors, of course.
Nature or culture? From which do you extrapolate your themes?
Nature, I think she contains more culture than culture itself :))
How much does your art depend on the location/space you work in?
All too little, you know that phrase, to “make do with what you have?” I think it fits perfectly as long as you have a space that accommodates a workbench and a furnace for burning; you can do whatever you want, it depends on you how involved you are.
Tell me three artists that you like, who motivate you and put you on work.
Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky, George Sowden.
How do you put yourself in the state of working in moments of no inspiration?
Honestly … I really don’t know, I don’t have the perfect recipe, but I usually stay indoors for 3-4 days, watching soap operas, cooking nice food; after 3-4 days I get bored of watching television and cooking and then I go to my workshop and get on with something without having a “task” in mind.
How is the relation between intent, planning, execution, and end product for you?
Very simple, that’s my way of seeing things. I think, implement and burn and then I get the result; if I like it, I keep it, if not, I give it to my mother, to put it in the garden :)).
Are there things you don’t want to reveal about your art? I accept a clue :))
I don’t think there are, I’m sort of a talkative person, so I’m telling you everything you want to know.
Tell me about an essential moment in your development as an artist.
Good question … where should I begin? First of all, I think I have to mention that I graduated from two faculties, one is what I considered at the age of 18 that would be my life-long job, namely Architecture-Scenography; and the second is Ceramics, which turned out to be something I will really do all my life. How did I get from Architecture to Ceramics? I honestly don’t quite know, the truth is that I was enormously bored with Architecture, already around my 3rd year, but I stubbornly graduated and then worked for another 2 years in the field … until one day, when I said that’s it, I want something new, something super creative, something to let me juggle with all those ideas going through my head. So after some time I met Tudor Oltean, he was a student of ceramics, I started to ask him all sorts of things about it; two months later I found myself in the workshop of Ioana Olahut (in your workshop :)) preparing for admission to Ceramics. I got in and there the love affair with Ceramics started.
What about the local art community, how do you relate to it?
It’s growing, I think this is the first thing I can think of when it comes to it. I am very glad that we are starting to develop and beginning to free our mind. As for how do I relate to it, I would say pretty well, with some artists I have been friends since we were kids, and others I met along the way.
How do you relate to the international context in art?
I’m growing up, to say so, I cannot say I am too related, but I’m trying to get there and rightly speaking I really think it will happen somewhere in the future.
How do the pieces you create reach "consumers"?
Through fairs, friends and instagram.
