The sofa, 2018, Video Still
Special Issue 24093 sometimes different sexualities or mentality. We are trying to communicate but instead we get in touch less and less becoming someone else unconsciously and sometimes we impersonate fake personalities with the anxiety to be acceptable or competitive. Internet marks our identity more than tradition,history or external life. My experimental video “The sofa” was an attempt to describe all this eccentric behavior and to depict that the human being today has a whole new state of mind and multi faced identities via internet as similar as the complicated nature of the web. A work of art can be considered a combination between understanding reality and hinting at the unknown: how does everyday life's experience and your surroundings fuel your creative process? And how do you think your works respond to it in finding hidden, crystallised moments in the everyday? For me there are two kind of worlds,the everyday world that you can see and perceive as reality and the unknown world that could be expressible, which once it becomes flesh ART Habens Melpomeni Gaganeli The sofa, 2018, Video Still
24101 Special Issue it’s already a known and real essence. I usually don’t limit or crystallize a moment but sometimes I am noticing something irrelevant in daily life and following a logical induction, an integrated idea generates without Melpomeni Gaganeli ART Habens
Special Issue 24113 evenremembering the original stimulus. We have particularly appreciated the way you combine found footage to create videos marked out with compelling narrative drive. ART Habens Melpomeni Gaganeli The sofa, 2018, Video Still
24121 Special Issue Manipulation in visual arts is not new, but digital technology has extended the range of possibilities and the line between straight and manipulated images is increasingly blurry. How do you consider the role of digital manipulation in video in order to offer an augmented visual experience? I think that digital manipulation in video is like the remix of sounds for a D.J or like the data type for a computer programmer. When I post produce a ready made image or combine real TV, youtube or journalistic captures, my working purpose is to break and recycle the initial meaning ,manipulating it in a different performative way of semiotics,aesthetics and language, in order to narrate my own perception ,reexamine it and insert it into new context. It’s my response to the chaotic labyrinth of information and images provided in the contemporary world,making use of these data and forms as a base material of a new construction of art. Another interesting work of yours that has particularly impressed and that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled The story of King Libayovski and his curse and Melpomeni Gaganeli ART Habens
The Story of King Libayovski, 2017, Video Still
Special Issue 2413 can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/216367747. Questioning the dichotomy between the real and the digital, your work seems to invite the viewers to look inside of what appear to be seen, rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. How important is for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal interpretations? And in particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? In my art there is always a basic statement and a specific intention that faces straightly and seeks to interact with the audience but I want a completed work that has found its purpose to be independent and distant of me. I am letting an open space for personal explanation and translation and in this space is where interpretation happens and where viewer creates its own experience. The gap that I release my control to the audience’s filter is the thing that satisfies me the most. Your artworks, and in particular democracy is to blame, that can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/240462647 weave such an effective socio political ART Habens Melpomeni Gaganeli The Story of King Libayovski, 2017, Video Still
24141 Special Issue criticism, to question a wide variety of themes in which you conveying an unapologetic critique of postcapitalism culture, including massive surveillance, hyperinformation as well as global crisis Melpomeni Gaganeli ART Habens
Special Issue 24153 and unemployment. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "artists's role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in. It depends on the political system they aree living under": does your artistic ART Habens Melpomeni Gaganeli The Story of King Libayovski, 2017, Video Still
24161 Special Issue research respond to a particular cultural moment? In particular, how do you consider the role of artists in our media driven and globalised contemporary age? In my opinion the political system is one and total all over the world. We live in a crucial period that there is no political stability or conversely a capitalistic system is well established even beyond leftists parties. The political apparatus of the elite is everywhere and in the mentioned video I want to emphasize its dysfunction and the inefficiency of the so called “democracy”. Its so ironic that the term democracy in greek means common people powered,and is sad that the point is opposed to the contemporary truth. Political events and revolutionary movements such as yellow jackets, Greek referendum of NO or Arabic Spring ,etc.. doesn’t seem to change anything. At this project I am trying to map the global landscape and its effects as an Universal structure and as an everyday life under random geographical variety. Even if it is difficult to describe world’s totality,it is important to point out that the role of an artist should not only be based on personal perspective, but should also make Melpomeni Gaganeli ART Habens
Special Issue 24173 more visible the omnipresent and general background scene,placing it intelligently into the foreground ,as well as evaluating the global political path and bring it closer to the personaI actuality. It is hard to avoid that the personal is political and vice versa. The combination between sound and visuals plays a crucial role in your works and we have appreciated it provides the footage of democracy is to blame and of The Sofa with such an enigmatic and a bit unsettling atmosphere: as an artist particularly concerned in the connection between sound and moving images, how would you consider the role of sound within your practice and how do you see the relationship between sound and moving images? The use of sound in my videos it’s mostly a tool of synchrony between reality and imagination but most of all an audioguide to lead the viewer in an awkward or whimsy environment ,in a way to enter in the experience. The intention is to give life and character to visual image, the sound/image composition act as a sound wave of narration. The synthesis of a movement with a rhythm animates an image that speaks to you and jumps out of real elements avoiding to imitate reality. It’s like questioning the existence of a moving image playing with its acoustic visuality. ART Habens Melpomeni Gaganeli The Story of King Libayovski, 2017, Video Still
24181 Special Issue For example, a flying candy that sounds like mosquito or a broken plate that screams gives a fanciful trait to the embodiment of the image. So, is just an entry- level technique to narrate without using words and sometimes a way to blur the intent. Melpomeni Gaganeli ART Habens
Special Issue Over the years you have exhibited your artworks in various galleries in Scotland and in Greece, and you participated to a number of festivals, including Alchemy Film and Moving image Festival. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic research 19243 ART Habens Melpomeni Gaganeli The Story of King Libayovski, 2017, Video Still
24201 Special Issue and before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks? I hope my work is functioning as a channel of energy while I am giving a mirror to the viewer to be a witness of its own identity. Thanks for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Melpomeni. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Thanks for the opportunity, it was my pleasure doing this interview. My aim for my future projects is to keep on searching the new material of our human and political contemporary identity construction. This period I am working on a project for a video installation, exploring to give a 3D perception and bring out my work as a visual sculpture. An interview by , curator and curator Melpomeni Gaganeli ART Habens
Special Issue 4012 Invasion, 2014, oil on canvas, 46x61 cm Lives and works in Bucharest, Romania
2 Special Issue Maria Bordeanu ART Habens video, 2013 024
ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Special Issue The Window, 2018, oil on canvas, 100x100 cm 403
Maria Bordeanu Hello Maria and welcome to ART Habens. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. After having graduated from “Nicolae Tonitza” Art Highschool, you enrolled the Bachelor of Arts program of Painting at the University of Art Bucharest, and after having graduated, you nurtured your education with a Master of Fine Arts, that you received from the same university: how did those formative years influence your evolution as an artist? In particular, how does you cultural substratum due to the influence of neoclassical artists, as well as your work as a photographer and 3D artist, direct the trajectory of your current artistic research? Hello and thank you for the interest in my work! From the beginning I was drawn to figurative imagery, both in painting and other media. The university years were about experimenting, it was important for me to be in a context of teachers and colleagues being preoccupied by art, aesthetics, ideas. I saw different approaches and I also took various courses. During this time I wanted to improve my painting technique because I felt that would help me create the works 404 Special Issue An interview by , curator and curator as I saw them. At the end of the four year study I settled on making several paintings which I reinterpreted as sequences from neoclassical works. It was a tridimensional approach of a shape and my painting technique felt liberated because it was adapted to reveal the details of hands, fabric and jewelry which had a certain decadence in them. The process of making something became important to me, hence my preference
Special Issue 24053 for photography which allows me to document places and ideas that would turn into projects. I am also influenced by paintings, movies and digital art and the way images are serialized and composed in order to achieve an impact. I also like the glossiness in a depiction and details that catch the eye. I learned 3D early on because I was very interested in it and the way I could make realistic images in a digital environment and it’s part of my daily work. It also brings a constant learning of tools and techniques and it has a variety of approaches, from sculpture to texture and camera knowledge. We have appreciated the way the results of your artistic inquiry convey such a coherent combination such an extremely high care to details and a rigorous aesthetics, and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://mariabordeanu.wordpress.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production: when walking our readers through your usual setup and process, we would like to ask you if you think that there is a central idea that connects all your works. There’s a “fragment of time” idea in my works, centering on an area from a larger background. Many of my paintings feature a zooming in on a detail or a scene, like establishing the focus for the viewer. This is inspired from movie framing and it serves the purpose of highlighting significant details. So far I investigated fragments of landscape where human intervention is implied, not featured. For some projects I wanted to have a significant relationship between the canvas frame and the painted theme. ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Rock habitat, 2015, oil on canvas, 45x80 cm
24061 Special Issue For this special edition of ART Habens we have selected Artificial Habitat, an interesting series that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of this stimulating project, is the way it unveils the tension between artificial and natural elements, to challenge the viewers' perceptual parameters; in this sense, Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Special Issue 24073 your approach stimulates the viewer’s psyche and consequently works on both a subconscious and a conscious level. How did you develop the initial idea for Artificial Habitat, and what were your initial sources of inspiration? The inspiration for Artificial Habitat came after visiting a Canadian biodome, where I was fascinated by the ecosystem created Outcrop Light, 2015, oil on canvas, 45x80 cm
ART Habens 24081 Special Issue in a constrained environment, with a great variety of flora and fauna. This was the first impression I had of surveillance, it felt like a constantly monitored world where I was in the place of the entertained visitor/observer of an ideal nature. The artificial rocks and plants gave the impression of a diorama and there was also an intense heat which felt like a tropical simulation. I documented this experience through a series of photographs which I later edited and adjusted to make the starting point for the Artificial Habitat series. I wanted to preserve many elements from the original space, while adding the pipes invading the landscape which show a world under construction or in the midst of decay, which lends to its need of preservation. There is also a dystopian feeling when looking at the fragments of nature and the question: is man cultivating them for the pleasure of viewing or because they are nearly extinct? There was also a particular image that stuck with me: that of a water area touching the walls painted with clouds and sky, where the transition was showing imperfections. It felt like a sci-fi moment, like looking at the edge of a world. We have really appreciated the vibrancy of the nuances that marks out your paintings, and we like the way they create such a powerful narrative drive from the details that you sapiently select. How did you come about settling on your color palette? And how much does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in a specific artwork and in Maria Bordeanu
Mirror, (detail) 60x100cm, 2015
Special Issue 24093 particular, how do you develop a texture? In this series I wanted to depict a lush nature immersed in fog, in a way that would enhance its artificial appearance. I usually work with multiple shades of green, ochres and dark reds. Here the ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Light habitat, 2015, oil on canvas, 60x140 cm
24101 Special Issue warm colours are mostly used to represent the industrial intervention and the rock structure, in the form of pipes with a feeling of rust. I tend towards warmer colors, using them in semi-opaque backgrounds to establish the undertone. This way I already have a setting in place when I continue painting and I develop a texture Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
Tropical, (detail) 60x100 cm, 2014
Special Issue 24113 through layering, with thicker strokes where the light falls on the shapes. In your Artificial Habitat series, the lush vegetation reveals a hidden world of ART Habens Maria Bordeanu The Display, 48x96 cm, 2015
24121 Special Issue pipes and structures which merge with the leaves and trees: we daresay that your artistic practice seems to aim to look inside of what appear to be seen, Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
Special Issue 2413 rather than its surface, providing the spectatorship with freedom to realize their own perception. How important is for you to invite the viewers to elaborate personal meaning? How open would you like your works to be understood? ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Water, 2016, oil on canvas, 48x96 cm
24141 Special Issue I expect the works to be open to interpretation, it is a staged world. Here are fragments of landscape constructed like a set, the viewer can imagine if there is a preserved forest in a controlled environment or an invasion of structures. Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
Interior 1, 2015, oil on canvas, 90x140 cm
Special Issue 24153 I wanted to convey a feeling first, of a very dense vegetation filled with details. It invites the viewer to see things happening inside the canvas, like smoke slowly rising, that will change the scene beyond what we see in the present. I liked this contrast between artificial and natural elements, an image suspended in time that creates a sense of unease. We can recognize a subtle, still effective socio political criticism in your artworks, and we have really appreciated the way you gently invite the viewers to question the contradictions that affect our contemporary society: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "artists's role differs depending on which part of the world they’re in. It depends on the political system they aree living under": do you think that your artistic research responds to a particular cultural moment? And how do you consider the role of artists in our globalised and media driven contemporary age? There’s a new wave of painters working within a Realist tradition. Figurative painting implies a certain slowness and reflection and it’s important in a world that is over-saturated with images and social media content. Even if it sometimes starts with digital processing, painting is always an evolving process, freeing itself from its origins through brushstrokes that transform the image and make it have a rythm of its own. In this sense, I consider the role of artist to be an important one, each image or object is unique because there is a choice behind it and it invites to discussion. By making a static image I aim to engage the viewer more, in a media driven culture that is concerned with appearences. The microclimate in the artificial habitat ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Ceiling 1, 2016, oil on canvas, 60x120 cm
24161 Special Issue project raises a question about what is still natural and what is replicated in the world around us. There’s also more awareness about climate change and the impact of man on environment, something I also wanted to imply in my works. Reflecting your interest towards baroque age, Interiors and Ceilings has drawn heavily from the specifics of its locations: the ambience doesn't play the mere role of a mere background: how did you select the locations and the details to be represented, in order to achieve such a brilliant result? In particular, how do you consider the relationship between Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
Special Issue 24173 Photography and your work as a painter? Traveling is a source of inspiration for me and I always document locations and buildings where I can imagine a story. There is a rich layer of history in the trompe-l-oeil depictions which I filter through a contemporary approach. Through the camera, I look for shapes and compositions that would become a base for paintings. It’s exciting to make sequences of places and people and an idea forms when I see a photographed project as a whole. I’m also interested in the aesthetic quality of the images and to discover ways I can make them ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Ceiling 2, 2016, oil on canvas, 60x120 cm
24181 Special Issue meaningful. And then painting creates something new because it is a constantly changing process that frees itself from the boundaries of photography. The baroque inspired ceilings bring a different point of view and I wanted to investigate their psychological impact, the viewer is always impressed by them but they must be seen from a distance. Painting them on canvas, it’s a new experience of watching the ceilings, rather than having them above. It’s an act of bringing them closer. The interiors immersed in water resemble venetian buildings under flood. The tone is subdued here and it is a nod to a reality where water levels rise and buildings slowly decay. I see it as memories from the past integrated in a slightly dystopian narrative. A work of art can be considered a combination between understanding reality and hinting at the unknown: how does your experience and surroundings fuel your creative process? And how do you think your works respond to it in finding hidden, crystallised moments? Most of my work is fueled by journeys and by looking for inspiration in different artistic forms, movies and books. In this sense, everyday experiences have had a lesser impact so far. I always approach a new place with fresh eyes, as a story unfolding, and once I am there I start to imagine a way I could arrange the pieces together. While traveling or discovering something new doesn’t happen very often, it has a feeling of singularity and a desire to see things that I might turn into a project. The preference for a certain kind of image is of course filtered by Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
Interior 2, 2015, oil on canvas, 90x140 cm
Special Issue pictures that surround us and how looking at them makes us feel. While I take different directions, my work is centered around a similar concept, that of finding details and moments out of time, and give them a greater significance by isolating them from a larger scene. Another interesting project of yours that we couldn't do without mentioning is entitled Zabriskie Point and is inspired from Michelangelo Antonioni's 19243 ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Zabriskie Point, 60x140 cm, 2015
24201 Special Issue masterpiece: we have particularly appreciated the way you have successfully accomplished the difficult task of freeing the images from their cinematographic origin to provide them with such an autonomous combination between rhythm and aesthetics. How did you come up to the idea of creating a painting out of the frames of a film? The explosion at the end of the film takes place in the character’s imagination and it Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
Summer 2015 2413 makes sense visually because it contains elements of rebellion and freedom. The fact that it has a dreamy quality and slow motion was what inspired me to paint the movie frames. The selection I made was from a cinematic perspective, which is a narrative point of view meant to simulate the experience of watching a movie. Every canvas is part of a sequence, a symbolic deconstruction of the explosion at the end of the film. I also wanted to Special Issue ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Zabriskie Point, 60x140 cm, 2015
24221 Special Issue show the place before the destruction, focusing on household objects. The explosion itself is mostly smoke but I approached it like depicting an installation, I wanted to give it a more substantial form through painting.For this and other projects I used a canvas close to the 2.39:1 aspect ratio, which is a current format for anamorphic widescreen theatrical viewings. It’s a personal take on it while also maintaining the movie frame. Maria Bordeanu ART Habens
Over the years your artworks have been showcased in a number of group and personal exhibition, including your solo shows in Bucharest: “The Final Scene” at 418Gallery and "Artificial Habitat” at Arthol2. How do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? And what do you hope your audience take away from your artworks? I wish to present the audience with an interpretation of a familiar reality. When Special Issue Summer 2015 2413 ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Zabriskie Point, 60x140 cm, 2015
taking things out of context, you can draw attention to them and subtly change people’s perception. That’s why I like to take places we know and give them a different significance, a new scenario, like in the case of plants and buildings faced with invasion or extinction. There is usually a close crop, leaving the viewer to imagine what lies beyond the canvas. Each space turns into a microclimate the way I see it, it can invite to reflection on the fragility of things. The abundance of details Maria Bordeanu ART Habens 24221 Special Issue
sometimes turns them into fictional museum displays. So I hope the audience would develop a relationship with a place that is isolated in time, close to the moment of change. We have really appreciated the Special Issue Summer 2015 2413 ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Porcelain 1, 2012, oil on canvas, 24x48 cm
Maria Bordeanu ART Habens 24201 Special Issue multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Maria. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future?
I really enjoyed answering, it was a very interesting introspection and revisiting of projects for me! I'm currently preparing a new exhibition and I work on paintings created like windows. My aim is to further deconstruct the reality Special Issue Summer 2015 2413 ART Habens Maria Bordeanu Porcelain 2, 2012, oil on canvas, 24x48 cm