What is your background?
My artistic activity began 12 years ago, years in which I completed my bachelor and master studies at the University of Art and Design Cluj-Napoca, I won numerous national awards and scholarships in the artistic field, followed by various exhibitions. Among these I bring in the foreground the personal exhibition „Unseen by the naked eye“ Cluj-Napoca, „New moon in virgo“ Sibiu, The personal approach has materialized in recent years, during which time I have identified myself in the current style due to its scenographic complexity. Currently, the works, regardless of the theme or subject, represent an illogical detachment from the faithful image of reality.

How does your cultural background influence the imagery in your art?
Through the works, I try to detach myself from classical traditionalism in expression, but the image collages and certain elements have a mark coming from a cultural background. The accumulation of superimposed elements leads to the idea of consumerism, and the central character found in most of the works is a portrayal of the artist, of free expression. I come from a fairly peaceful generation, but one that lived with small traces left by the communist regime. In houses cluttered with possessions, knick-knacks, rugs on the walls, picture frames laden with photographs. I think that an influence on the picture collage could also be subtracted from this fact.

Many of your artworks seem to explore transformation and detachment from precise references. How do these themes connect to your personal experiences?
The scenographies created are indeed collages with elements taken from the real world in antithesis with certain distortions, metamorphoses, and juxtapositions. They are usually realized involuntarily, without referring to a precise subject. I let spontaneity and chance define me. But there are also fragments that I introduce voluntarily, elements such as certain flowers, animals, and small symbols that mirror moments and stages of my life. Like the work „Madonna with Child“, which marked the birth of my child.

What themes or central figures appear in your work?
My works, often called visual poems, bring the subject of femininity and its power to the fore. There are symbols taken from three categories of elements that are transposed in most of the works. Oversized plants are often inspired by reality but without faithfully transposing reality. Metamorphosed animals and, last but not least, the central character, a mirror of the ego, in the middle of the works, placed in an unreal space. All transposing forms of femininity, protection, empathy, and power. A multitude of elements, fragments, and stories surrounds us. I pass them through a personal filter through which antagonistic boundaries disappear and new ad-hoc forms are born.

What role does fantasy play in exploring recognizable elements, and how do you hope viewers will interpret these juxtapositions?
I also mentioned that the works seem to be a scenography with unreal characters and elements, a dominant concept in Chirico’s art. Viewing the world as an absurd, nonsensical theater stage. The fantastical, the mythical, and the gestural play one of the most important roles in my art, because through this filter I pass every recognizable element to transpose it on canvas. I like to play with shapes, colors, and lines. My desire is not to send a message with each work but to create a state of insecurity, to generate a sense of mystery, a question. The viewer sheds light on the ambiguity behind the works. In this way, the viewer will directly participate in the interpretation of the work.

How do your roles as an artist and a mother influence each other?
Once I became a mom, my mindset and the way I perceived time changed. I realized that we are constantly in a learning process. As a mom, I’m learning to be an example and not focus on raising an example child. As an artist, I am learning to enjoy what I do more, glorify every minute in the studio, and enjoy every smudge on the canvas or line drawn on paper.

What challenges do you face in balancing these two significant roles in your life?
One of the most significant challenges I faced during this period was time management, enjoying each stage of life, and realizing that I don’t need to detach myself from one part to manage the other.

„I don’t know how, but I will“—how d do you envision the future?
It’s about having confidence in what I’m doing. I don’t know what more steps I need to go through, but I’m sure that the result will be something I will be proud of.

What are you working on right now?
I’m currently working on new paintings in the same configuration, in the same manner as the previous ones, with the ever-present female character. But a small detail that I haven’t made public at the moment is the realization of some collages of oversized characters on paper, which I see to be integrated with a future exhibition.

Ioana Tocoaie – www.instagram.com/ioanatocoaie/