Elite Art Gallery hosts the exhibition Forget-me-not Flower by the artists Andreea Gabriela Tudor and Lavinia Maria Oniciuc, two of the four winners of the 7th edition of the #FRESH competition.
The four winners of the #FRESH contest were chosen from over 70 participants registered for this year’s edition by a specialized jury made up of painter and teacher Andrei Rosetti, founding member of the Noima group (2003), Marian Ionel Dobre, doctor in visual arts and associate professor at the National University of Arts in Bucharest – Painting and Prof. univ. Dr. Codrina Laura Ioniță, professor at the Faculty of Visual Arts and Design from UNAGE Iași and doctoral supervisor at the Doctoral School of Visual Arts.
Gardens have always represented spaces of refuge, where the patience and tranquility of nature enhanced inner reflection, and man was encompassed by the eternal beauty of plant elements.
The exhibition Forget-me-not Flower evokes a horizon of memory, of various lasting ties woven into the thread of existence, interpreted in two distinct chromatic palettes by the brushwork of the artists Andreea Gabriela Tudor and Lavinia Maria Oniciuc.
“The delicate petals caress our skin, awakening in each of us a long-forgotten memory, a moment of respite in which we can relive the dearest moments. Like the changing chromatic instances of the forget-me-not flower, the characters of the two artists reflect, at different intensities, subtle messages, creating a dialogue between the echoes of our lives and the emotions released viscerally from the soul.
In this context, the artist Gabriela Tudor describes imprisoned figures in the memento mori component, the ephemerality of life being carried in a bodily vault, hiding a silent messenger of memories that never fade. The reverberation of the forget-me-not flower is reflected in the portraits of the artist Lavinia Oniciuc. Stepping shyly from the expanse of the dusky gardens, the promise of an idealized future illuminates the faces, the play of shadows waiting to reveal the true human nature,” said Roxana Diochețanu, exhibition curator.
Andreea Gabriela Tudor (b. 2001) graduated in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts, Painting section, within the Faculty of Arts, Lower Danube University in Galati. In 2022-2024, she pursued two master’s degrees, Cultural Studies and Painting, at the University of Bucharest and the Lower Danube University in Galaţi. The artist’s works explore identity in relation to the effects of relentless time.
Lavinia Maria Oniciuc (b. 1997) studied “Easel Painting” at the University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca, in 2019. From 2019 to 2021, she completed a master’s in painting at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca. In realistic formulas, the works pencilled by the artist become landmarks of self-knowledge, the calmness of nature potentiating this contemplative process.
The exhibition can be visited between August 5 and 30, 2024, from Monday to Friday, at the Elite Art Gallery (Piața Naționile Unite, no. 3-5), between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
