Not a homage to Malevich but a test of the same proposition: what does a black square on a white ground actually mean, and is there anything left to say about it? This painting's answer is that the texture of the black matters enormously — applied here in seventeen thin washes that together produce a black of considerable internal complexity.
The white border is not neutral — its width was calculated over many experiments and represents the narrowest possible margin that allows the square to sit within the canvas rather than touching its edges. A single centimetre more in either direction changes the reading completely.
About the artist
Mihaela Lungu's paintings reduce the pictorial proposition to its minimum viable expression — a single colour field with one compositional decision, a texture repeated until its variation becomes the subject, a boundary between two colour zones held with the discipline of someone who has considered every alternative. What looks effortless is the result of a practice built around the deliberate elimination of the unnecessary.
She studied in Bucharest and at the Royal College of Art in London, where she encountered the British minimalist tradition that remains a significant reference. Her realist works exist in counterpoint to the minimalist practice, made from still life arrangements in the studio. She does not accept commissions.
