Ioana Palamar (b. 1989, Rădăuți, Suceava, Romania) is a visual artist and lecturer at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts in Iași, within the Painting Department. She holds a bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degree from the same institution, and beyond her academic role, she is an active presence on both the national and international art scene.

Violet Deppness (2017)

Another way of self-defence

Her style is defined by chromatic austerity and the fragmentary representation of the face and body, transformed into metaphors of memory and identity. Rooted in childhood and adolescent memories, her works convey both fragility and resilience. Critics have highlighted the apparent stillness, the suspension of time, and the tension between the ephemeral and the eternal that emerge from her practice.

For Ioana, the creative act is more than visual expression: it is a way of being, a form of existence and breathing. “Even a landscape can be an ‘selfportrait,’ because it reflects my way of being, of conceiving art, of existing through it and therefore of breathing,” the artist affirms. This statement reveals the profoundly subjective dimension of her work, where self-portraiture transcends the literal face and becomes any visual form that reflects the inner self.

Sparkle (2023)

“The concept of my work intertwines itself within glances, within silences, within faces that quietly retreat into the shadows of the unconscious—where they ascend, piercing the cryptic heavens of a self not yet revealed. My hand wanders in search of the traces of two bodies, discreetly emerging beneath the shadow of an eye encircled by an infinity of other eyes, hidden in the soul’s skin of bygone times. 

I open one door, then another, and another still—onward, into infinity—in an endless search for selves... A (non-)face gazes back, contemplative, beyond the window of a seasonless sky, merging with the humble rise of a blade of grass, or with some extension of the nostalgia that has haunted me for years. And now my layered melancholy yellows, ripens, and suddenly falls, like an overripe fruit, stripping my eye bare and leaving it Naked in the darkness of Light.”

In essence, Ioana Palamar is an artist of introspection and memory, who transforms pictorial fragments and silence into spaces of reflection and reconnection with the self, inviting viewers into an experience of self-discovery.

This article presents a selection from her artistic universe, spanning paintings, ceramic works, and acrylic pieces.

Discover more of her works and artistic journey by visiting her website and personal pages, where she regularly shares new artworks, articles, and accounts of her artist residencies.

Photo credits - Ioana Palamar

"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."

The contemporary art project “Listen to the Ocean/Sea”, conceived by artist Mihaela Lungu in collaboration with Radu Homiceanu (sound design) and Dromp (new media), is on display from August 1–7 at the Mini Cinema space, part of the Cinemascop Garden at the EFORIE COLORAT Festival. The project invites us into an immersive experience that challenges everything we thought we knew about what is currently happening in the waters of our planet.

We often imagine the ocean as a quiet, untouched paradise. But what lies beyond this idealized image?

In reality, the depths of the sea are a disturbing soundscape, marked by an invisible and devastating chaos: underwater noise pollution. Mihaela Lungu’s installation functions as a mirror reflecting our unbalanced relationship with the aquatic world – a relationship defined by indifference, exploitation, and the relentless pursuit of resources, at the expense of marine ecosystems.

The idea for the project emerged from a simple, almost mundane observation: while looking at a seashell, the artist recalled the universal myth that one can “hear the sea” by bringing a shell to the ear. She asked herself: what if, instead of waves, we could hear the ocean’s real sounds? What if, instead of a soothing memory, the shell transmitted the desperate cry of marine life?

During her research, Mihaela Lungu consulted the Ocean Conservation Research sound library and discovered what she calls “the sounds of an assaulted marine world.” This led her to incorporate those audio materials into the project, as a warning signal. She began collaborating with Radu Homiceanu to create a sound composition: a mix of real recordings of distressed marine life and human-made sounds – from acoustic communication networks, military sonar, oil drilling, to the infernal noise of commercial shipping vessels.

All these sounds can be heard in the exhibition through shells transformed into speakers, powered by eco-friendly, solar-charged batteries. Around this sound core, the artist has built a complex multimedia installation.

One of the key components of the exhibition is an interactive video projection, developed in collaboration with new media artist Dromp. The projection, connected to a proximity sensor, reacts to the visitor’s movements: the closer you get to a shell to listen, the more agitated the water in the image becomes – a metaphor for the imbalance we create through our mere presence.

Another element is a light installation resembling a chamber structure with spotlights connected to the audio system, pulsating in sync with the sound. The light intensity increases until it becomes blinding, placing the visitor in the shoes of marine creatures that navigate, hunt, communicate, and migrate through echolocation. These animals become disoriented by noise pollution, which leads to disorientation, accidents, and death.

The exhibition also includes an object-based installation titled “Toy Beach Set”: a beach playset made from recycled filament, 3D-printed and hand-finished by the artist. But instead of classic marine shapes (fish, starfish, octopuses), it features waste forms. The traditional sandcastle transforms into a “Sand Supermarket”, alluding to consumerism and plastic pollution – a projection of a dark future where plastic has replaced marine fauna and become the ocean’s ultimate predator.

“Listen to the Ocean/Sea” is a visual, sonic, and sensory call to recognize, hear, feel, and fight the invisible suffering of the deep.

The Brașov Art Museum is currently hosting Where the Sky Burns, a solo exhibition by visual artist Diana Serghiuță, under the curatorial vision of Mihai Zgondoiu.

The Artist & her Art

Featuring Diana Serghiuță’s latest body of work, the exhibition marks a meaningful return to her native Brașov (Romania). For the first time, the local audience is invited to experience her art in a dedicated solo presentation. Currently living and working in Arad, the artist brings with her a rich, symbolic visual language shaped by personal mythology and introspective exploration.

Running through August 18, 2025, the exhibition leads viewers into an evocative world where timeless symbols—such as the serpent, fire, and the tear—are reimagined through a distinctly contemporary artistic vocabulary. "The artist transforms these archaic symbols into a personal alphabet, rich in ambiguity and meaning. Each work becomes both a philosophical inquiry and a meditative space, where the act of looking turns into a rite of passage," explains Alexandra Ilnițchi-Ardelean, responsible for Communication and PR at the Brașov Art Museum.

"Beyond the dense, gestural painting and the ethereal, almost sacred sensuality of her drawing, the exhibition invokes cultural memory, recovering forgotten meanings in a world increasingly consumed by material reality," she adds.

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Born in 1985 in Brașov, Diana Serghiuță is a visual artist whose work delves into the intricate and vulnerable dimensions of the human psyche. A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design in Timișoara, with a focus on Painting, she completed her Master’s studies in 2010, followed by a PhD in Visual Arts at UVT in 2016.

Her artistic approach gives shape to emotional and psychological states that reside at the threshold between reality and imagination. Serghiuță’s compositions open up intimate, symbolic spaces—laden with personal references and veiled narratives—where memory and identity intersect. Her visual language is infused with a contemporary, feminine sensibility, reinterpreting fragments of her own life into poetic, often enigmatic forms. She currently lives and works in Arad, Romania.

Mihai Zgondoiu (born 1982, Mediaș) is a multidisciplinary visual artist, independent curator, and gallerist, with a PhD in Visual Arts from the National University of Arts in Bucharest (UNArte). He currently teaches as a Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara (UVT).

Zgondoiu is the founder of Atelier 030202, a contemporary art space in Bucharest dedicated to experimental practices, and co-founder of the visual culture magazine PROPAGARTA. Actively engaged in both the academic and independent art scenes, he lives and works between Bucharest and Timișoara.

Photos by Brașov Art Museum 

Music // Theatre // Visual Arts

The UNAGE Alumni Exhibition Iași 2025 is a project of the National University of Arts "George Enescu" (UNAGE) in Iași, which aims to present, in the public space of Iași, the diversity of forms of artistic expression specific to the concerns of its students and graduates. Now in its second edition, the project includes a selection of images from various bachelor's or dissertation works by graduates of the three faculties of UNAGE, namely the Faculty of Interpretation, Composition and Theoretical Music Studies, the Faculty of Theatre and the Faculty of Visual Arts and Design. 

Information about the institution (faculties, departments and research centers) is presented, as well as photographs from theater and choreography performances, concerts and recitals, visual art works and exhibitions or discursive events, highlighting the plurality of formats and artistic manifestations in which UNAGE graduates express themselves - we learn from the project team. 

165 years after the establishment of modern artistic education in Iași, the National University of Arts "George Enescu" is a reference institution in higher artistic education in Romania, with over 1600 students today and 45 study programs for bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, covering the essential fields of art. As an institution of artistic education and research, it has the assumed mission of shaping and cultivating talents, characters and personalities, of training well-trained specialists, who can offer the public a quality cultural act, through a sustained activity of creation and scientific and artistic research, ensuring the progress of Romanian art and culture, in an international socio-cultural context.

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Content editors: Lavinia German, Dalia Rusu-Persic, Andrei Enoiu-Pânzariu, Ioana Bujoreanu

Project coordinator: Cătălin Soreanu

Photos by Cătălin Marinescu