abstract painting
Mirela Iordache: From Sediment to Structure. The evolution of the "MACRO" Project
February 18, 2026 | Cosmina Marcela OLTEAN ArtPageThe new exhibition “IN ABSTRACT – MACRO” by artist Mirela Iordache, now on display at the Museum Complex of Bistrița-Năsăud, marks a turning point in a research process initiated in 2022 and first made public in 2023 through the intervention “Suspention” at the Herina church. If, at that time, painting was literally suspended within a sacred space that amplified its contemplative dimension, it is now reorganized, contextualized, and subjected to a structural reading.
The current exhibition is not merely a reprise, but a stage of clarification and radicalization of an inquiry into pictorial matter.
Matter as Tension
In its initial formulation, the Macro project was built upon a close investigation of materiality. The artist describes the early process:
“The works were created using gudron, pigments, and calligraphy inks applied to canvas, as I sought to highlight the tensions between matte surfaces and opaque areas, as well as the contrasts formed between the sediment of pigment and the chemical reaction of the resin on the canvas, alongside the transparencies generated during the drying process.”
This account situates her practice at the intersection of painting and material experimentation. Chemical reaction, sedimentation, and transparency become active compositional agents. The image is not illustrative, but the result of a negotiation between gesture and process.
“This material dynamic of returning over layers generated […] a stratified pictorial space, sustained by gesture and matter, which constructed a Macro world of abstract forms.”
Stratification here is not merely technical, but conceptual: Macro implies amplification, a microscopic investigation of pictorial matter to the point where figurative reference dissolves.
From Plane to Volume
The present stage introduces a major mutation: an exit from the plane. The intervention of a geometric volume—a network of colored threads woven over a twisted parallelepiped—translates pictorial tensions into three-dimensional space.
The artist explicitly articulates this intention:
“The three-dimensional object placed in front of the work is a module of spatial extension of the painting’s internal structure. The woven thread network translates into volumetry the linear and energetic tensions of the brushstrokes and textures already existing within the pictorial plane, transforming them into a visible architecture.”
This statement is crucial: the internal structure of the painting is externalized. The energy of gesture becomes architecture. What was latent within the layered surface becomes visible in volume.
“The dialogue between the geometric volume and the pictorial surface marks a stage of transformation,” the artist notes, emphasizing that the object “externalizes this energy, projects it into three-dimensional space, and makes it tangible.”
In critical terms, we might describe this shift as a movement from a painting of sediment toward a painting of structure.
The Black Strip: Line of Force and Conceptual Threshold
Another decisive element is the emergence of a transitional work in which the composition is tensioned by a diagonal marked by a glossy black strip, resembling stretch foil. Here, the artist clearly acknowledges rupture:
“The background canvas acts as a transition toward a new project, with a structural and conceptual break from the canvases of the Macro project.”
The earlier dynamic between matte and opaque, sediment and transparency, is suspended. In its place appears a line of force.
“The glossy black strip traverses the pictorial field like a line of force, introducing the idea of passage, of detachment from one process and simultaneous opening toward another.”
This intervention functions both as separation and connection—“a factor of distancing and unification at the same time, between the canvas and the twisted object placed in front of it.”
Moreover, the artist defines it as a “line of demarcation between two stages of my visual research, taking place between the pictorial and the objectual, between sediment and structure, between interior and exterior.” In this sense, “The Macro project generates a new conceptual branch through this approach.”
From Suspension to Articulation
If the 2023 exhibition privileged spatial immersion and the vertical dialogue with sacred architecture, the current museum presentation—organized along the walls—allows viewers to trace the internal evolution of the project. The 18 original canvases, now complemented by large-scale works and the three-dimensional intervention, outline a coherent trajectory.
“The exhibited works reveal themselves through each gesture and brushstroke of color and invite the viewer to a direct reading of each surface,” Mirela Iordache states.
This “direct reading” requires a slowing down of perception and an understanding of painting not as image, but as energetic and structural process.
Overall, “ÎN ABSTRACT – MACRO” marks a transition from the microscopic investigation of matter toward an almost architectural articulation of the image. It is not simply an extension of a project, but a moment of transformation in which painting externalizes its tensions and assumes its own structure as subject.
