What if portofolio

WHAT I

oana Alexandra Niculescu-Aron

&

Contact us: whatif.artistduo@gmail.com

F

lora Sopa

‘’WHAT IF’’ •

Members

Ioana Alexandra Niculescu-Aron I was born in 1994 in Bucharest, Romania, where, right now, I live and work, following the MA in Painting at the National University of Arts in Bucharest. Thanks to some scholarships, I was fortuned to study painting at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan and at HEAR Strasbourg-Mulhouse (Haute école des arts du Rhin) as well. I have exposed works in over 15 places in Romania, Germany, the United States, Spain and Italy.

I am an art addict. I am young. I am vibrant. I want to understand who I am. Who the others are. What life is all about. Painting, I find myself. Painting, I explore myself. Painting, I capture the essence of the others. Like I imagine a blind person slowly discovering other humans, I discover the world by painting and in sculptures. I paint. Full stop. I am a visionary. Through my nature I love living, exploring life and then give life by colouring canvases, walls, gesso, and everything else stays in front of me. I am strong, I know this.

Social media accounts: Facebook: /ioana.alexandra Instagram: /ioana_aron_n

Flora Sopa I was born in 1991 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. From a young age my family was pushed by circumstances out of our control to move across the country. I started discovering new environments, experiencing new influences and meeting different people. All of this became the basis of who I am today as a person and as an artist.

In 2012, my artistic views had completely changed after an Erasmus experience at École Européenne Supérieure d’Art de Bretagne in Rennes, France. There, I had discovered fresh art and a new way of thinking that appealed to me from the beginning. Hungry for more, I returned to France for complete my master’s studies at Haute École des arts du Rhin (HEAR) in Mulhouse (a region within which I am still artistically active). Despite some difficulties, my experiences taught me to always find and trust myself in my own art. They taught me to be flexible, strong and independent and to always use my innate sensibility towards colour and natural geometry.

Social media accounts: Facebook: /sopa.flora Instagram: /florasopa

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About

We met in France in January 2016. We both left Romania to study fine arts abroad, looking for more accessibility to art exhibitions and information. Our origin brought us together originally, but more importantly, we were bonded by our determination and curiosity.

We were analysing all sorts of topics, among which was the stable position of Duchamp’s work in the French art world and how his presence has persisted and remains unchanged by time and through new movements, like Contemporary Art. We were speaking only in Romanian to each other.

Our common interest in learning, expanding our artistic limits/horizons, questioning our decisions and following our instincts has only strengthened our relationship. Before the end of the semester, we started thinking about doing a collaboration for our next international exhibitions. Becoming a duo was just another challenge we were ready to take.

“Presenting myself” would become “presenting ourselves”.

Ioana’s exhibition in New York was just another pretext to meet again just a few months later..

We coordinated our two journeys to the United States in autumn 2016. We found ourselves in the middle of the New York’s streets walking from one art gallery to another. We would be taking on challenges and would express our own ideas. For us it was a comfortable, familiar experience. However, just for a limited period of time. It felt the same every time we went back to Romania; like we did not belong to any set place anymore. Apart from those experiences, the main motivation that drove us into thinking about creating the duo was our deep belief in international borderless art.

With each new travelling experience, our art is enriched. and with each new world discovered our state of mind changes. New thoughts appear and build up new images in our heads. All this “ephemeral” living in different cultural spaces offered us the opportunity to rediscover ourselves in certain contexts, unimaginable until then. Sometimes, we would leave a place without any plan for the next country. Details were unknown in regard to how long we would stay or what we may do. We would sometimes leave a place without having a delimited plan for the new country. There were unknown details, whether they were about the time spent there or our actions. Therefore, expectations were much higher because of the limited exposure to the new environment.

Our “mapamonde” is a guide, filled each day with more observations and notes. With each new experience and each new territory that we traverse, new ideas are formulated. This is how we believe the mind of a traveller is taught to function. An individual of globalisation. We remember only what is essential and we make associations. All these associations are the Information that we gather and that moulds our artistic instincts, before they can be expressed and materialized.

This search in the middle of cultures and continuous artistic movements is actually an endless investment in US and OUR ART. And even though we don’t work together, nor do we share a common painting, we see our proposition as an environment that would unite our two worlds. An assembly of accumulated experiences and revisions. A dialogue of two different points of view on the same Universe.

An artwork based on connections

The beginning of a research

I spread from one manner of expressing to another and on however much space I have at my disposal. For this reason, I create series of canavas which can be hanged in different variations, in different shapes, according to the atmosphere that wants to be created in one particular moment and depending on the exhibition space.

In 2015, I embarked on a study to find a way of possibly creating images by using sound.

My research ranged from purely psychological and instinctive associations, started at the beginning of the 20th century by Wassily Kandinsky to more rational approaches based on the research made by Ernst Chladni.

A common feature of many works of mine is the fact that I use the frame as an element inside the outer limit of the canavas. I juggle with the dimensions of this frames – squares in the case of the works „Constelation 2” and „Study 1”.

In order to be able to rhyme, I interlace them with some longer squares, respectively the rectangles.

At the end of the 18th century, he developed his work based on the formation of cymatic patterns. To produce them, he used a metal plate and a violin bow. Using the bow, he made a rigid surface covered in sand resonate and as a result, the sand would form nodal lines on the surface. These drawings were soon to be called Chladni’s figures.

The same technique produces visible results when water is used as the medium and an amplified frequency is transmitted through it.

Study 1_58x40cm_acrylic on playwood_2016

Constelation 2_82x52 cm_acrylic, cardboard and feathers on canvas_2017 In regards to the „Constelation 2” work I rhymed feathers so they fill in a square more or less rich. In this way I drawed tridimensional waves, adding as elements the subtle and the refinement – by the definition of the feather.

I doubled the contrast of the work, which is no longer only suggested by the shapes which entered into the dialog (the rectangle and the square), but also the contrast of the rudimentary in front of the precious.

The connection between the two imaginary layeres, separated for that matter by the characteristics of the materials used, it is executed by drawing some „vectors” of transition: broken lines connecting two points.

PinkViolet_1_70x70_oil on paper_2017

Leak 2_80x140cm_acrylic on linen_2015

Blue and Gold_6_100x70cm_oil on paper_2017

While continuing my studies in oil techniques and the flexibility of its layers, I decided to try and combine the ancient marbling technique first developed in Asia and the water variation of Chladni’s technique.

The results were incredible, the frequency’s vibration managing to make oil colour bend and follow its pattern.

Soon, the cymatic patterns that formed on the water became the engine for the creation of abstract shape in my work. While imprinting them on paper, I try to capture the whole frequency movement, but also to create multiple variations by using large gestures and sometimes superposition.

I live, like all other people, the time of globalization_80x140 cm_acrylic on canvas_2014 The points in question are plastic markings designed to lay down certain directions of interest and to streamline the composition. Over the initial intention of squares and rectangles is the illusion of a recomposition without an end, of a permanent search.

I have chosen to accompany these works with older ones, from different series. If in the work „Leak 2” I was looking to illustrate the sensation of separation of the soil from the walls, the collapse of this balance (I introduce space between the parts of a construnction wanting to highlight the imbalance), one year I

GreenBlue_2_70x70_oil on paper_2017

Painting, Music and sense association The uniqueness of each frequency and its resonance produces a significant influence in the way I build and finish my paintings. The table of correspondences is constantly being widened providing the possibility of using a larger variety of frequencies.

One important decision I made was to listen to, and then add my personal intuition while choosing various pairs of colours and sound frequencies. The intention of the whole experiment is to open to a new world of chance and randomness.

Later, I explored working on only certain parts of the paper, allowing the painting a chance to breathe.

Erasing the memory _60x130cm_acrylicand oil on wool_2015

Violet and GreenGold_1_ 100x70cm_oil on paper_2017

Since my work is directly connected to the senses association (hear and sight mostly), we could assume that I am adopting a personal approach in understanding synaesthesia.

In continuation to my research based on scientific experiments, I’ve decided to also include mathematical equations when introducing the two components: sound and light. The colour would ultimately become the light’s representation as the visible part of the painting, the static graphic result of a fluid, dynamic mix of colour and a constant frequency.

RedCopper_1_whitepaper_50x70cm_ oil on paper_2017

RedCopper_7_whitepaper_ 50x70cm_oil on paper_2017

3_125x125cm_acrylic on linen_2016

was painting „I live, like all other people, the time of globalization” piece which sensed this separation, mimed by a partition which defined my universe, „my bathtub” from the rest of the fantasies which I had regarding the exterior, fantasies which I painted on the exterior of the partition, in both cases I used the perspective to represent the dynamics of the thoughts. In the same year with „Leak 2”, I painted a different type of speech, entitled „erasing the memory”.

To have a proper translation from light to sound and vice-versa, I engaged in calculations based on the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum and the audible part of the sound spectrum.

This time it represents the linear thinking and not because I am inconsistent, but because it is a detail of the other works, dedicated solely to thinking. On the other hand, with this work , I reveal the process of artistic creation (testing of signs, covered redrawn and covered again) – more exactly that part of a work of art improved by eliminations and unexpected additions.

This decision was based on Isaac Newton’s

Untitled _43x95cm_acrylic on canvas_2017 On the other hand, the horizontals and verticals „woven”, mimics the mivement made by a machine when chops the paper, the same with the alignment of zigzags formed by the harddrive of a computer during the process of deletion. I have chosen to illustrate like this what I called „ erasing the memory” starting from the premise that our mind has the power to choose the content of which drawers of memories to delete, and imagining that visually, things might be about so.

GoldYellow and Green_3_70x100_oil on paper_2017 17th century hypothesis of a possible existence of a correlation between the seven colours part of the segmentation of the White Light (succeeded manually throughout a triangular prism at that time) and the musical notes found in an octave.

In conclusion, that Do/Ut was connected to red, Re to orange, Mi to yellow, Fa to green, Sol to blue, La to indigo and Si to violet.

This „investigation” it constantly reminds me who I am and which are the principal references to which I go back when I am working.

In this way, each time, my ideas become more complex, being permanently rolled like a snowball.

I have talked about the importance of perspective and idea of the form in the form, as it can be well seen in all the last works, with rectangles and squares placed inside. If „erasing the memory” has functioned in my artwork like a break, I went even further, to analyze the details.

The result has been the canavas which debated monochrome, or the relation between the two colors.

I talk about abstract painting, I understand and assume this side and the need to express myself this way. I materialize this by almost transparent layers of primer or color.

Untitled _43x95cm_acrylic on canvas_2016 This work could be a witness of how my creative mind works . I could resemble my artistic development with an investigation. I like to keep in view unconditionally reasons or plastic signs (writings) of series or pieces previously made. I refresh them and mention them with the canavas/the installations/ the videos newly made. Thus „I walk” components the way I would move on a wall notes with certain findings or evidence, then I would be at the point of discovering something/ somebody.

I give depth into space and the light of color from almost nothing. I build textures and densities. I let my self get lost first in an abyss of color inside a detail of microscope.

I separate then through thin lines of architecture the purity of color.

Violet and GreenGold_3_100x70cm_oil on paper_2017

While following and combining both directions, I’ve created at the end of the year 2015 work expressed in various colours, finally introducing black as induce that a low frequency was used during the process of creation.

The 24 Hz series (reproductions available on my website, year 2016) was one of the first series from the kind, having added to the colour a couple of spoons of metal powder.

This one, in combination with the new way of impression on painting enlarged my artistic language in the matter of shape and surface.

Untitled_43x95 cm_acrylic on canvas_2017

GoldViolet_1_70x70cm_oil on paper_2017

I like to draw to thin out and to thicken the lines.

In worls like „Leak 2” I build straight places so that I could „ close myself in boxes”. I now enclose „the color” to suggest a boundless freedom.

Water Through a mixture of pigments and water, the reproduction of the sound frequency is illustrated in a broad, fluid, almost transparent movement that reinterprets images that look that they could belong to the almost invisible worlds of macro and micro cosmos.

Whether it is about feathers or acrylic color paste, they are suggestions of individual analysis of the color, the gesture and the texture. More than that, the works „ Constelation 1” and „ Constelation 2”, also reach a mystical sphere of the universe – an univalent constellation.

As a result of its collaboration with water, my work has succeeded in showing the details of the journey in its creation; piece of art that begins with the most vital fluid of life.

GreenBlue_1_70x70_ oil on paper_2017 My paintings borrow both their structure and movement from this fluid and end up recording the element’s instability when combined with a painting medium that has only existed for no more than 2000 years: the oil painting.

These shapes perfectly reflect the creative process. The fluidity of the water can be seen in and felt through the entire image. The folds which separate the forms from each other resemble an organic tissue in a static nature.

Multiple impressions on the same surface have become more present in my work, ranging from the almost transparent thin layers to deep dark ones, sometimes oversaturated with different colours or metallic powder.

Monochrom _42x113 cm_acrylic, feathers and aluminium on canvas_ 2017

I find this cluster of styles, themes, and types of representations as on a mirror of the post-modern era, an era in which nationalities and traditions become subordinated to the identity of each individual, flexible and manageable, with an incredible capacity to adapt ( but not in the whole meaning of the word). I describe a post nomad society.

Constelaton 1_ 82x52 cm,_acrylic, feathers and cardboard on canvas,_2017

One of my goals is to surprise an ephemeral movement in a gesture and immortalise it.

GoldYellow_3_70x100cm_oil on paper_2017