Art Encounters 2017 Exhibitions:
Urban Insights

Ioana Bătrânu (b. 1960) lives in Bucharest, Romania. She approaches marginal themes with acute sensitivity, in a permanent vacillation between subjectivity and reality. There are a few themes which constantly come back (Melancholic Interiors, Enclosed Gardens and Latrines) and which, seen together, form a coherent image of her personal project: looking for the point in which the break with the world and the attempt to make peace with it are simultaneous in her existence.

Selected exhibitions: Margins, Galeria Plan B Berlin (2013, solo); Scènes Roumaines, Espace culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2013); Romanian Cultural Resolution, Spinnerei, Leipzig / Club Electroputere, Craiova (2010); Ioana Bătrânu, Simeza Gallery, Bucharest (2008, solo); Painting and Drawing, ¾ Floor Gallery, The National Museum of Contemporary Art – MNAC, Bucharest (2007, solo); Bucharest-Budapest Bridge, Bartók 32 Gallery, Budapest (2007); Signs of Faith, Villa Concordia, Bamberg (2006, solo); Banquet, Simeza Gallery, Bucharest (2004, solo); Margins, Dalles Hall, Bucharest (2002, solo); Painting and drawing, Lido Casino, Bucharest (2002, solo); Painting, Simeza Gallery, Bucharest (2001, solo); Melancholic Interior, ¾ Floor Gallery, MNAC, Bucharest (2000, solo); Transitionland, The National Art Museum of Romania – MNAR, Bucharest (2000); Versions of Transfiguration, Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest (1998); Bukarest nach 89 – Kunst in Rumanien Heute, Ludwig Forum Museum, Aachen (1997); Ad hoc, Ludwig Museum, Budapest (1997), Beyond Belief – Contemporary Art in Central and Eastern Europe, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha / Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia / Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio / Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1995-97).

Ioana Bătrânu’s paintings always absorb ordinary reality and render the most intimate existential provocations, taking place on the background. From visible details of everyday life, the artist creates psychological tension, fed by the refusal to accept social norms. Once you enter the impersonal corridors with identical doors – corridors that can be school hallways, stairways in blocks of flats, prisons, hospitals, etc. – you are subject to standardized behaviour. The gravity of the space is also emphasized by the expression of the brushstroke and colours used, transforming painting into a gesture of revolt, translated through the means of pictorial image.

Images:

1. Ioana Bătrânu, Portret, photo credits: Mircea Tohatan

2. Ioana Bătrânu, Melancholic Interior (2015), acrylic on canvas, 240 x 280 cm, photo credits: Bogdan Bordeianu