A gouache study of three peonies in a ceramic vase, painted over two sessions while the flowers were still at their fullest. The challenge of the peony is its complexity — dozens of petals folded into each other, each casting its own shadow on the ones beneath, the whole arrangement changing as the flowers continue to open during the session.
The green of the stems and leaves was the most worked passage, requiring adjustment each time the pink of the petals was altered, because the two colour temperatures define each other in a peony study.
About the artist
Ioana Barbu's paintings combine the precision of realist technique with subjects and situations that cannot exist — architecture that opens onto impossible spaces, figures that cast the wrong shadows, rooms that contain more than their dimensions allow. She builds this pictorial logic carefully and with deliberate slowness, which is partly why the impossible elements feel grounded rather than theatrical.
She studied at the National University of Arts in Bucharest and has been working in surrealist modes for over a decade, developing a visual language that is entirely her own. She accepts commissions from collectors comfortable with giving her significant creative freedom.
