“Damaged People” is a series of 6 installations (out of which I’ve selected the top 3) created between January-March of 2011, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, respectively Wroclaw, Poland.
The artworks presented include close friends and well-known models.
I chose models in contrast to relatively unknown people because anybody can be famous, anybody can be damaged, no matter how good their life is.
The five characters represented have a strong, even contagious sexuality, as they are a result of our modern society, which inevitably revolves around sex.
Through these works I am questioning who and what we perceive as damaged, because apparently it may happen to anyone, regardless of background or current situation, and whether or not they’re actually damaged, or we just choose to question this based on what we think happens inside them.
People transform their bodies in sync with what they’re going through inside. When they exceed socially-accepted limits, they become damaged in the eyes of others, but also interesting to a few who are open-minded.
The artworks question making yourself accepted in a society that sees you as (mentally) damaged: being borderline anorexic, having most of your body covered with tattoos, visually exposing what you believe in, trying to be something you’re not, or maybe trying to show people what you really are and, because of this excessive sincerity, people reject you.
Regarding the installation itself, the need for branches is supported by wanting to project the inner self of my models outside of the canvas in an expansive and interactive way. I am trying to express the rebirth of a generation, of something new, and I want the public to take part in it by feeling a strong connection to the artworks presented, to the fact that they break the barrier between what’s depicted in two dimensions and what people see as their three-dimensional continuity.
The technique used, a loosely realistic charcoal drawing on canvas, is in opposition to the raw branches, and the characters’ interaction with them suggest borderline reality, questioning what we perceive as real (the drawings or their 3d projection and continuity).
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