Isabella Becheanu Artist Signature
Alb Negru
M.A. student for Textile Art, with a temporary residency in Timișoara city, Romania.
Text and Design created by Gabriela Robeci
M.A. student at the Arts and Design University, Timișoara.
The Sound of Silence Continuing the series of textile sculptures, the latest piece is an installation that includes texture, light and sound. The texture is guaranteed by the same use of unprocessed wool and jute thread. For the light, an electric system is integrated in the piece, connecting a light bulb to a battery. The sound is created with the use of a music box, attached to the torso’s arm. This piece refers to the sound of our interior heart that can enlighten us once we find it. In order for the viewers to find this sound, they need to get close to the art work, embrace it, lean their ear on the torso’s chest and spin the music box’s lever. Thus, this piece is not only a mixed-media installation, but it is also an interactive piece of art, that remains in silence and darkness if the public doesn’t turn on the switch for the light or doesn’t spin the lever for the music box. The underlying message is quite blunt: there can be no such a thing as art, if there is no public to enjoy it.
Metabiosis Metabiosis is a 3-piece work, created as my graduation project for the B.A. studies in Textile Design, at the West University, Timișoara.
Exhibited at: TIMCO Timișoara for the B.A. Graduation Exhibition in 2016 VEGETAL-E online exhibtion, http://youngromanianartists.omeka.net/items/show/9
Exhibited 2017
A R T B O X
P R O J E C T
B A S E L 1 . 0
The Heart, the Lungs and the Brain are 3 organs displayed on monochromatic backgrounds, in order to stand out. They are ripped out of the body and beautified by natural elements that spring out of them. The decay of human society, symbolized by the net filled with melted pills, the fish basket, the chains or the gas mask, bring our organs to a grotesquely-devastated state. However, nature has the power to cure anything, even such a condition. Thus, all the medical plants that are good for one’s heart, lungs or mind are reproduced out of felt and pinned to the wool sculptures. Also, I decided to use pieces of dried plants to underline the materiality of natural elements in contrast with man-made elements (chemical or metal). Because of the natural dried plants and the unprocessed wool, together with lavender (for preserving wool) confer these works a certain ambient and a subtle sent that has a therapeutic role for the viewers.
Exhibited 2016
T E X T I L I S M E 4/3
Each piece is a part of the Installation entitled Metabiosis, but can also be presented independently. T I M I Č˜ O A R A
The installation’s title refers to a metical term, used to define a living creature that depends on another live being in order to live in a certain environment. Such as some living things depend on others and blend into the new space creating their ambiance, so do human organs dwell in their toxic elements, but depend on natural ones in order to survive and keep on living. The photo on the left includes a later version, that includes a later work, Herzschlag, created for the Miniature Arts Biennial in Timișora, 2016.
Exhibited at Textilisme 4 Timișoara 2017
Exhibited 2017
V I S @ V I S
Miniature Textiles
The miniature installation consists of five pieces, representing insects, flowers, birds or gelly fish closed in jewelry boxes. Some of the small creatures are breaking free of their wooden and glass prison, while others are dwelling inside, getting smaller and smaller. The human presence is shaping environments and I wanted to show that the need of keeping pets and that of closing animals in limited man-made spaces is helping species survive in an artificial place, that makes them get smaller, adapting to the new situation, while the creatures that remain outside are quite large and the have the ability to develop freely, colorfully and unhindered by human presence, such as the jelly fish staying outside the box.
Exhibited at Nearby Faraway, Umelka Gallery 2017
A Little Breath The miniature piece is a felt project created for Ariadne XXI Exhibition, 2017, exhibited at the Union of Visual Artists’ Gallery in Târgu-Mureș city. As the Lungs in Metabiosis represent the organ’s degeneration caused by a toxic environment, this miniaturized version symbolizes the last breath a small soul can give, locked inside a room, suggested by the window frame.
Exhibited at Ariadne XXI Târgu-Mureș 2017
Herzschlag The miniature wool sculpture was designed for the B.I.A.M.T., Biennial for Miniature Arts in 2016, from Timișoara. The small piece a modular piece that can be integrated in the Heart of the Metabiosis Installation, or that can work on its own, as an independent piece, entitled Herzschlag (Heart Beat).
Exhibited at B.I.A.M.T. 2016
Herzschlag integrated in Metabiosis, Rm. Vâlcea Exhibition 2017
Palmișoara The two pieces are tapestries created during the Art Residency in Méricourt town, located in France, the region Nord-Pais-duCalais. The purpose of the artistic residency was to present locals, adults as well as children how tapestries are created. Participants had to use creative methods to create looms for their weavings and then work in the garden in front of the town’s Social Center, interacting with passer-bies, explaining or showing them how to weave on a loom. There was also a project to show children how to weave on ‘toy looms’ created out of cardboard boxes and strings. The entire Project was attached to the retrospective exhibition of Roger Somville’s large-scale tapestries. With the help of textile residency artists, locals could better understand the weaving technique used for Somville’s tapestries and actually see how they are made and have the chance to make small pieces themselves.
Exhibited at MĂŠricourt, France, part of Artistic Residency for Robert Somville Exhibition 2016
Also, Curse Life / Blestem și Viața This piece is a textile drawing, marking an Egyptian-inspired design on a fabric that unrolls and swings from a wooden frame, as a flag would from its banner. The motif of this piece is the way curses seem to blend into the narrative of people’s lives, sometimes creating a thrill of ancient discovery, up until thinking of that uncomfortable feeling of one own’s passing into the after life.
Exhibited at VIS@VIS Timișoara 2017
Exhibited at Textilisme 2 Timișoara 2015
Swan and Eagle The Swan and the Eagle are chosen as two animals with powerful references in art history for its symbolism and heraldry. These emblematic tokens of human representations are swirling in a spiral, the movement being the key element of the piece. The never-ending circularity shows how history always repeats itself, always basing its power on the traditional institutions that have always ruled. One unique feature is the use of materials. Untreated wool, felt and a bird’s wing are the natural elements so important for the artistic piece that wants to be an organic decent in our symbolic history.
Paper Phoenix
This piece is an experiment of using toilet paper with the technique of papier-mâché in such a way that the materials would never be guessed. The totemic power of the Phoenix that rises from its ashes and comes back to life is doubled by the material’s property of burning easily. All it takes is for the paper to be lit and the entire Phoenix would go back to its ashes. However, in this case, only the artistic process would be able to bring back the piece to a new life.
Exhibited at Art and Design Faculty, Timișoara 2017
The Festival of Timișoara’s Arts 2017 The Arts Festival takes place each year in Timișoara, inviting local artists, students and craftsmen to display their creations in public spaces. As part of the Textile Team coordinated by University Professor Valentina Ștefănescu, the students could transform the traffic limitations placed on the street into works of art. The purpose was to let the locals and the tourists experience a useful objects in a different way, as if they were textile sculptures.
References can be found on: https://www.facebook.com/FestArteTM/
Arts Festival Timișoara 2015 The annual festival for arts in Timișoara sustained projects of transforming the Botanic Park into a public exhibition space. The Fluffy Trees Project involved wraping the trees in textile materials, transforming them from simple elements that any park has, into what seemed to be furry beings. The purpose was to let locals interact with their city environment better, attracting them to visit parks more often and to view them also as places of finding art, not only as places for mere strolls on weekend afteroons.
Exhibited in the Botanical Park during the Arts Festival in Timișoara, 2015
Gentle, vegetation, confusion This piece is part of a series of experiments to represent a picture based on 3 words chosen at random. The project was coordinated by Valentina Ștefănescu, University Professor at the West University, Timișoara and the purpose was to increase the student’s ability of synthetizing given tasks into a coherent visual project.
3 W O R D S P R O J E C T
Visual projects exhibited at Textilisme 2016
Sown Portrait This is one of the works in which a series of different techniques is used, such as sowing, embroidery, painting on cloth, collaging material pieces. The piece is created for the Ariadne Exhibition 2015 in Târgu-Mureș.