L’Istituto Romeno di Cultura e Ricerca Umanistica di Venezia organizza nella Piccola Galleria, in collaborazione con l’Unione degli Artisti di Romania, il Museo Regionale Gorj «Alexandru Ştefulescu» di Târgu Jiu e il Liceo artistico «Constantin Brăiloiu» di Târgu Jiu, tra il 30 maggio e il 5 giugno 2024, la mostra d’arte «Human Nature» delle artiste Cristina Cioplea e Gila Frost Miller, a cura di Dorina Cioplea–Văduva e Roni Reuven.
La mostra sarà inaugurata giovedì, 30 maggio 2024, alle ore 17:00, e sarà aperta al pubblico con ingresso libero, tutti i giorni, dalle 16:00 alle 21:00, fino al 5 giugno 2024.
La mostra raccoglie una selezione delle opere di Cristina Cioplea e Gila Frost Miller ed è il risultato della collaborazione fruttuosa e duratura tra le due artiste, un dialogo visivo mediato dai curatori Dorina Cioplea–Văduva e Roni Reuven. Nelle loro opere, le artiste affrontano il tema del ritorno alle radici, alla ricca eredità culturale romena che trova pieno riscontro nelle loro creazioni artistiche.
Sabato, il 1 giugno 2024, dalle 10:00 alle 12:00, si svolgerà in galleria un laboratorio per bambini, coordinato dalle artiste e insegnanti d'arte Cristina Cioplea e Gila Miller.
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Far and yet close to each other, the two artists share the ease of expressing the complexity and, in the same time, simplicity of human nature. Starting with the use of materials and tehniques and continuing with the call to memories, their work can represent, easily, the two faces of the same coin – a coin of deep questions and answers about (their own) life. Each of them uses a unique and personal mix of traditional and contemporary materials and techniques. And I think that this is the expression of their personalities: the (cap)ability to adapt but never forget.
Sometimes extremely curious and aware, other times just instinctive and relaxed, Cristina Cioplea is the perfect vehicle for expressing the human nature. So complex, with strong old roots, the artist is always adding (sometimes without selection) layers from new experiences, clinging to random (or maybe not so random) memories and images, passing by others very easily. The universe she proposes to us is touched by magic, a dash of madness and a lot of melancholy. Flowers, butterflies, sometimes fishes, trees, branches and leaves, colors and non-colors, crocheted, sewn, attached, drawn, painted, all very graphic, sensitive and feminine, with different textures, but yet cohesiv. You can find all (and much more) in Cristina’s art. The Romanian artist finds outside of herself materials and ways to express her inside, in an inside-out journey.
On the other hand, I feel like Gila Frost Miller’s artistic process is the other way around: after descovering and even receiving pieces of materials in the outside world, she takes them in, makes them her own, finding ways to connect – in an outside-in journey. Reusing materials, giving them another life but, in the same time, keeping some of their original identity, Gila’s work is an unique complex and a daring way of telling true and sometimes painfull stories. Herself a mix of heritages, the Israeli artist introduces in her projects pieces of blankets, tablecloths and other ethnic textile pieces received from women born or established in Israel, with all of their emotional and cultural baggage. Sometimes, on some surfaces, the artistic intervention is minimal and the repurpose comes from the joining of the materials and colors. Other times, Gila uses graphic and painting techniques to intervene with symbols. All in a very organic and personal manner.
(Co-Curator: Dorina Cioplea–Văduva)
About four years ago, a perfect match was made in the city of Târgu Jiu, Romania between Israeli artist Gila Frost Miller and Romanian artist Cristina Cioplea, during an artists’ residency. Hours of thinking and dialogue during the long period of Covid-19 formed the inception of a collaborative art-making by the two artists. Their first joint exhibition, “Human Nature,” was first held at the Yavne Art Workshop, Israel, (Summer 2022) and then continued to the Romanian Cultural Institute, Tel Aviv, curated by Roni Reuven (Fall-Winter 2023).
The encounter led to the exhibition “Things Never-Ending” with works by Gila Frost Miller, Hedva Reuven, Roni Reuven, and Cristina Cioplea, held at the Alexandru Ştefulescu Gorj County Museum, Târgu Jiu, Romania, in March 2023, jointly curated by the Museum’s Chief Curator, Ms. Dorina Cioplea Văduva, and Mr. Roni Reuven. From there, it was but a short step to an invitation to exhibit “Human Nature: Continuing the Conversation,” by Cristina Cioplea and Gila Frost Miller, curated by Dorina Cioplea Văduva, at the Romanian Institute in Venice.
The two artists are continuing their dialogue based on the traditional discourse on the state of the human being. “Paradise is both humanity’s origin and its ancient past, and also a utopian image of its future redemption” (according to Gershom Scholem, “On Walter Benjamin and his Angel”, in Od Davar [Something more] (Tel Aviv: 1989, p.446). “Paradise” is a universal concept, common to both Christian philosophy in which Cristina developed and Jewish philosophy, the world from which Gila originates. Paradise is perceived by the two artists not as a physical location, but as a metaphor for the state of humanity and the relationship with nature. Artworks by the two are characterized by preserving what exists while leaning on tradition and referencing contemporary daily life.
Artist Cristina Cioplea, who lives and works in the city of Târgu Jiu, Romania, engages the return to roots, to the deep, sacred sources of her heritage. Her search is at one with the pathways through which she engages in her artwork. Her research-based artwork represents the human soul as the image of a fragile, transient butterfly, vulnerable and sensitive to changes. This is part of life cycles represented by flowers in the open space along with universes bounded in infinite circles. Nothing is coincidental; the human being’s life trajectory is pre-ordained and cannot be changed. The unmediated encounter between the contemporary and the past in her oeuvre constitutes Cristina’s return to her self, to the stories of the past that are so close to the present, to the basic, traditional materials that rise up to the surface, to the nostalgia for and the connection to tradition.
Artist Gila Frost Miller is the daughter of a Romanian Israeli mother. She is searching for her family’s visual traditions to grasp and from which she can develop as an artist. In the group of works on view here, Miller strives to present tradition alongside of innovation, repurposing found materials. This intention arises from the desire to be ecologically-aware and to preserve a tradition brought to Israel from other places. The crochet work in the exhibition can no longer be defined as applied art but has become a kind of curtain or crocheted graffiti work reflecting timeless messages drawn from the sources and reflecting universal human nature. Other pieces were based on crocheted fragments gifted to Miller by women who heard about her art project and who contributed curtains, tablecloths and blankets, some whole and others in pieces.
As part of the work process, the women related their individual, complicated life stories comprising emigration, transitions, renewal and change. All of these narratives blend into a mix striving to conserve historical traditions and inculcate them to forthcoming generations. The collages on view in the exhibition are based on a mosaic of prints with parts of crochet thread and textiles which gave rise to new stories. The repeated motifs are based on the possibilities of replication through printing and the repeated patterns in the crochet works.
The images in the artworks are of doves, ravens, butterflies, hands, motifs of growth, parts of trees and leaves, branches and flowers. The avocado has a special place of honor: it grows in water and finds its way to the outside, into the open space.
Two artists; two worlds; one never-ending reality.
(Co-Curator: Roni Reuven)
