Artists

Simona Mihaela Stoia

Press release

Opening September 10, 5 - 9 PM The Wind Blows Where It Wants Simona Mihaela Stoia For Simona Mihaela Stoia (b. 1982) her paintings are the expression of our relationship with nature through experiences of wonder, disconnection, a longing for (re)connection and the sublime. From her childhood in Romania to rural Ottenburg, where she currently lives, she interrogates the narratives and representations of the mental images that were imprinted in her mind during long wanderings outdoors and, following it, translates these ideas to the physical world of the canvas. This forms the basis of her artistic works. Above all, she has felt within herself, from her youth, a drive and longing to reconnect with nature that nothing or no one can teach. Looking out over the Romanian fields or the soft hills in Ottenburg, the paintings are indeed right there for the taking. Strongly inspired by the smells, colors, and textures of the changing seasons, Simona intentionally moves away from realistic depiction. Her work is an abstract translation of sensory memories, bringing to life unique forms and compositions that do not exist in the real world. Her works are not intended as representations of particular landscapes, she constructs them from fragments, memories. Through this act of recreation, each canvas invites the viewer into a fresh discovery. A fascinating inner world remains hidden within the layers, sparking an intimate dialogue between the artwork and the observer. This dialogue is propelled by a profound sense of rhythm, the use of color and movement, qualities that serve as the defining hallmarks of her aesthetic. She builds highly tactile surfaces, applied in layers and combines them with delicate, almost thin, diluted translucent veils to dense and contrast the sculptural parts that were created directly from the paint tube. The materiality becomes essential and functions not merely as an image but as a physical presence. As such, the paint is not imitating nature but behaves like it, organic, unpredictable. Through this process Simona is very interested in texture and surface, she likes the paintings to have an almost tactile, woven quality, somewhere between painting and tapestry. Simona's journey is a continuous pursuit of a lost paradise — her own Garden of Eden. Each canvas becomes a ritual of repetition, where every layer introduces a fresh revelation, processing new emotions and incorporating subtle shifts that gradually unveil and release the deeper truths of her artistic quest. In fact, she is painting this Garden of Eden, or better fragments of it, over and over again in an absolute attempt to reconnect with what we have lost, being in and part of nature. What was is never again, or not? In doing so, she sculpts a universe where concepts and rituals are not yet, or no longer, fixed, and new meanings emerge, propelling the works towards a given image one wishes to approach, understand and transcend—the latter remains a piece of mystery in these paintings; it is as if they are reaching for the other side, the sublime. Ottenburg, 22 August 2026 Steven De Vleminck