Ioana Bătrânu is a Bucharest-based painter whose recurring themes are melancholic or solemn interiors, richly decorated interiors and lush gardens, rendered in a richly painterly and expressive style. In the empty spaces, the mere furnishings suggest the presence of man, as in Banquet, a table set for a festive occasion, with white tablecloths, plates and candlesticks, but without the festive company. Bătrânu’s painting came to the museum’s collection from the 1997 Romanian contemporary art exhibition Ad hoc and, unlike most of the works exhibited there, it did not respond directly to the rapid socio-political changes of the 1990s, but took a more general, existential view of the condition of life in Eastern Europe. Bătrânu does not follow trends; her paintings are based on feelings and inner experiences, using motifs and painterly devices that are divorced from contemporary reality to convey a universal sense of loneliness and alienation.
Krisztina Szipőcs
Related content
1–2–3: The Collection in Focus – 2nd Floor Exhibition Space 16. November, 2007 – 10. February, 2008
This is the first time since the initial exhibitions of the Ludwig Museum in 1991 and the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1996 that the Museum’s own collection has been put in full focus: some three hundred of the five hundred items it holds will be on display on the three floors of the Museum.