We have the great pleasure of meeting with Diana Badea from Igloo both at our vernissages and at the Artist Talks. Diana is a keen connoisseur of philology, art history and theory, and psychology, with a reception that is as sensitive as it is profound regarding the dynamics of an artist's creative process and, in general, the issues surrounding image making. The encounter between Răzvan Neagoe and Diana was extraordinary, as it revealed a new and distinct dimension in Neagoe's intermediary approach between painting and photography.
"Between January 18 and February 25, 2024, the third exhibition at Arsmonitor Gallery-the newest art gallery in Bucharest, located in Casa Presei Libere-took place. Entitled Sinegrafia, the event mapped a series of themes, techniques, and recurring subjects representative of Răzvan Neagoe's artistic endeavor over the past 20 years. According to the curatorial text, his approach can be described, in a metaphorical sense, "as a form of pictocorrection of photography or, conversely, as an overexposed development of painting."
In the following dialogue with artist Răzvan Neagoe, we explore his relationship with the image, or more precisely, with the meta-image, his connection to painting-a trace of which is internalized in his works- and the major themes present in the exhibition: landscape, urban, industrial, and the laboratory-a sanctuary he still opens to visitors, among many other topics.
Diana Badea: Your art is more than a consequence of a series of technical innovations or optical recordings; you create images rather than reproduce them. It is both image and language, engaging with a landscape of both reality and imagination. Paraphrasing a famous title by art historian and critic W.J.T. Mitchell, what do your images want?
Răzvan Neagoe: The image I propose is a collection of fragmented visual information that tells the story of the successive changes I have recorded over a specific period. I am not interested in creating beautiful works with perfectly captured frames or exact exposure rules reproduced in the lab on paper. I prefer visual fragments to be part of a moment or an instant. The time spent in the lab, in the field, with loved ones, or moments of visual experience also hold a very important place in my memory. I aim to interpret this temporal interval in an original way through an urban, industrial, or rural landscape, which is also personal. This representation is a subjective choice to depict the reality that surrounds me."
