Romanian Artists Exhibition in New York: The Path

After a successful debut exhibition, ‘LIGHT: An airy viewpoint of density’ in Bucharest, Diana Nicolaie, designer and visual artist, is exhibiting at the RCI New York alongside Carmen Marin. These two artists, each with their own distinct styles and practices, will engage in a captivating artistic dialogue through a mesmerizing showcase of art, design and light titled “The Path: Fusion of Two Worlds Inside/Outside.” The grand opening is scheduled for October 26 at 7 p.m. at the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, in Manhattan, at 200 East 38th Street. The exhibition is realized in partnership with Art Safari Bucharest and is open for visitors until November 10th.

Diana Nicolaie presents a selection of eight mixed media art pieces that vividly illustrate the symbols of light – Life, Divinity, Hope, Truth, Celebration, Purity, Guidance and Knowledge. In white tones, seamlessly blend painting, structural elements and light, all enhanced by a unique olfactory experience.

In the year 2023, I’ve realized that anything is possible. After years of dedicated work, I found the courage to step into the art world, and now I have the privilege to share my vision in the city of limitless opportunities—New York. I believe I’m on the right path – My Path, The Path. It’s an honour to embark on this journey alongside an established artist, Carmen Marin, whom I deeply admire. Our distinct styles and techniques converge under the curatorial concept of Ioana Ciocan.

Diana Nicolaie, Romanian artist

Diana Nicolaie recently designed the exhibition from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, “Bags: Inside Out,” at Art Safari Bucharest. Diana creates distinctive, monumental pieces and proper installations on canvas. Diana Nicolaie’s art is based on the play with varied shapes and textures, solid volumes and mixed techniques. The visual artist uses the play of lights and shadows as an open invitation to the viewer to enter her artistic universe.

I believe light is the unifying force that harmonizes perspectives, emotions and disparate worlds, guiding the viewer toward introspection. Light converges various viewpoints on what we feel and experience, transforming a moment, an emotion, or an image into a unique and defining encounter. My works aim to capture the artful fusion of sculpture and painting in conveying a message through light. Light remains a constant presence while we interpret images, textures, and ideas differently. The element breathes life and emotion into an image defined by shadows and colours.

Diana Nicolaie

Carmen Marin presents a collection of six paintings that adopt a surrealist approach, delving into the realms of dreams, the unconscious and the ever-evolving socio-cultural phenomena. Central themes of existentialism and postmodernism have pervaded her semi-figurative paintings since 2020. Drawing inspiration from the visual vocabulary of modernist and contemporary masters like Joan Mitchell, Georg Baselitz, or Kiki Smith, Carmen Marin approaches each canvas with an original perspective, delving into both the visual and human condition in an ongoing journey of reinvention.

Carmen Marin was involved in preparing the “Pain Memorial” exhibition in Sighet, and she got her first international recognition in 2004 when she won the Art Prize at a salon organized in Lausanne, Switzerland. She collaborated with several European art galleries in Greece, Spain, Germany, Finland, Norway, Ukraine, Italy and the USA throughout her career.

As Jean-Paul Sartre famously said, ‘Each man must invent his own way.’ Every exhibition is unique and has its poetic nature. It is up to the viewers to create their poems and leave a message behind them. We are all on a mission! I believe that the canvas surface has the potential to manifest the interconnected aspects of our perception of the world, transcending the linguistic multivocality of figuration and abstraction, organic and inorganic, self and other. Although polysemy is an essential starting point for understanding and rationalizing our realities, it is necessary to transcend the limitations of this logic. Painting is a means of achieving this goal.

Carmen Marin, Romanian artist

Ioana Ciocan is the Commissioner of Romania at the Venice Biennale and a member of the scientific council of the Cotroceni National Museum. In 2023, she was honoured with the Eisenhower Fellowship, and in 2021, President Klaus Iohannis of Romania awarded her the “Cultural Merit” Medal for “Plastic Arts.”