A watercolour made in early June in a field near Iași when the poppies were at their most saturated red and the green of the stems and leaves was at its most intense complement. The painting had to be made quickly — the poppies close within a few days of opening.
Wet-into-wet throughout, with the reds applied first and the greens built around them. The most important decision was how much white paper to leave active in the sky — too little and the composition collapses; too much and it floats away from the ground.
About the artist
Diana Moldovan's portrait practice is built on sustained observation and an insistence on slowness — she spends more time looking than painting, and the works that result carry the weight of that attention. Figures are rendered with psychological presence as well as physical likeness, and the backgrounds are treated with the same care as the faces, because a person's surroundings are also a kind of portrait.
She has worked as a portrait commissionaire for private clients and institutions across Romania for fifteen years, and her studio practice runs alongside that commissioned work as a place to take risks on her own terms. She accepts commissions.
