A surrealist interior in which the room continues beyond what its walls should permit — doorways open onto spaces that could not exist given the architecture, and the light sources multiply and contradict each other in ways that are spatially impossible but emotionally coherent.
Acrylic allowed the building of multiple spatial readings. Each doorway was painted to look entirely plausible in itself, so that the impossibility of the overall space only becomes apparent when the viewer tries to reconcile the parts. The sensation is of a déjà vu that cannot be located.
About the artist
Carmen Badea makes landscapes that are first of all honest and only secondarily beautiful — she is more interested in recording the light as it actually is on a grey Tuesday in November than in selecting subjects that lend themselves to easy pictorial success. The paintings that result have a muted, contemplative quality she considers more truthful than the bright pastoral tradition.
Alongside the oils, she maintains a gouache botanical illustration practice that is more precise and patient than anything else she makes. The two practices feed each other: the broad handling of landscapes loosens the botanical work, while the precision of botanical studies disciplines the landscape painting. She accepts commissions for both.
