A realist still life of red carnations in a glass vase — a subject chosen because carnations are unfashionable and therefore require a painting to justify its existence rather than coasting on the pictorial glamour of more conventionally attractive flowers. The glass vase presented the additional technical challenge of transparency and reflection.
The stems seen through water and glass were the most worked passage, requiring sustained attention to the distortions that water and cylindrical glass produce. The background was kept to a warm neutral, allowing the red to define its own presence.
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.
