Painted in the Herăstrău park in Bucharest over three mornings in November when the trees were bare and the grey light was uniform enough to be studied without fluctuation. The impressionist handling here is in the service of honesty rather than sentiment — November parks are not picturesque.
The figure in the middle distance was added during the final studio session, providing scale and a point of human reference that the bare landscape needed without tipping the painting toward narrative. It is far enough away to be unidentifiable.
About the artist
Simona Apostol's paintings do not start with a subject — they begin with a colour, a texture, or a word, and the image that emerges during painting is accepted rather than planned. This approach means her work has the emotional intensity of expressionism, the formal organisation of abstract work, and occasional recognisable imagery that appears as if by accident.
She has developed this practice over more than a decade, resisting the pressure to make her process more legible or her imagery more consistent. She accepts commissions rarely, and only from collectors comfortable not knowing what the finished painting will look like.
