Young Blood at Art Safari 2023: interview with the young artist Mirela Cerbu 

Any great painter was, once, just… a young hope in the artistic world. And a famous artist had his (her) beginning in a small gallery or on a wall of a passionate collector. And because I want to discover more and to learn as much as I can about the art world, every day is a perfect day to meet a new artist. This series is about the young artists presented in Young Blood 2.0 section, at Art Safari 2023. Today, an interview with the young artist Mirela Cerbu. 

#ArtBlogger #Interview #MadeInRomania #English

• Mirela Cerbu is one of over 50 artists presented in „Young Blood 2.0. What is new in art?”, curator Mihai Zgondoiu (@z_g_o_n_d_y). Instagram – @mirelacerbu.
• Art Safari 2023 will have a 3 parts. The 11th editions, the first one, is on  going between 10 of February – 14 of May, at Palatul Dacia-România (Muzeul Municipiului București), Lipscani Street 18-20. Tickets on tickets.artsafari.ro/.

The 3 major themes that you constantly capture in your works are … 

In terms of my personal practice, the absurd, paradox and aberration represent the central themes and a part of the instruments that I use to analyze, coagulate, and represent the conceptual and physical image at the level of the proposed subject. 

Why? I constantly work with these themes because most of the attention that I dedicated to the process of work is oriented around gestures, accidental technique, the impulse generated by spontaneity, present mood, the despair of concentration in relation to other elements, and exterior and interior situations from my existence. The Absurd, The Paradox, and The Aberration want to point out a few keywords: irrational, illogical, unjustifiable, ineffable, inconsistency, etc. Also, ambiguity, chaos, and absurd are a part of the hazard family, and it, in turn, is a part of the architecture of things that are built in the shade of a type of manifestation that strives for the liberty of expression. Therefore, through these, I want to develop the idea of chaos as an extension of nature and the way it can be coordinated and controlled to generate an intense flux of inspiration and artistic creativity. The other two neighbours, paradox, and aberration, in a way, own a component, material versus absurd that manifests a specific imponderability. We could consider the fact that we could deal with three goals that manifest unitarily under an unknown form. Both in the case of reasoning and of irrational, absurd-paradox-aberration emit some kind of universality. These notions, for me, become a mind game and a manifestation of the spirit. 

Your artwork that we should pay attention to at ArtSafari 2023 is…

One of the artworks that will be exposed at Art Safari is called The Wedding, it’s a 400×300 cm work, created with a mixed technique on canvas in 2022. 

Why? Because The Wedding is an artwork that proposes a personal introspection process, even though the main motives under research are taken from the external environment. I emphasise a type of representation of the internal world. Also, you can feel the presence of a type of conflict for positioning and localisation of the individual between the exterior and interior; it can also be identified a dumbfounded sentiment between two worlds; the idea of release through the consciousness; an introspection is proposed on the interaction relationship of the interior with the exterior, the association, and metamorphosis of the idea of the fly as an insect or the snake in the self-status of the inner self. It is one of my most monumental works of mine so far that consists of a dynamic image, in which the meeting of the various motifs that I have worked with over time takes place. One of the aspects that can be identified upon first contact with my work, is the hazard or chaos. This fact is characterized by my desire to “dig” in depth and render certain “microscopic” parts, which are represented in the drawing become “macro”. 

The plastic landmarks that I offer the viewer for an aesthetic reception of the work are channeled in such a way as to allow relatively easily the moment of appearance (of the backplane in the front plane of the work). The Vordergrund (background) of my project, in addition to the psychoanalytical associations suggested by me, implies an escape into another playful universe, but also an introspection of the viewer regarding his own condition in relation to external reality and the transformations on which it stores them, as well as accessing their layers in depth by means of a personal availability and an appropriate aesthetic attitude. 

About you, as an artist, we should know that…

I am very fond of my studio practice and like to spend most of my time drawing and exploring various motifs that I multiply in a dynamic, progressive compositional play. I like to work spontaneously, without a well-defined plan, where intuition takes control and the unpredictable, at the level of the image structure, has its say. I don’t usually work with sketches for the big works I make. In the future, I want to explore other mediums in parallel, such as site-specific installations, objects, and various sculptural structures. 

Romanian contemporary art is worth investing in it because… 

… it is extremely diverse, experimental, surprising, and unpredictable. The young generation of artists is on the rise because they have new working tools, completely different operating systems from the traditional system of representation, and various methods of relating to the public through certain platforms and current channels through which a dynamic dialogue is built and versatile. 

We can find you (website, Instagram, galleries, etc)… 

My main online channels are my Instagram account: @mirelacerbu, and my website, respectively http://mirelacerbu.com/.