"First Steps" a show by Irina Maria Iliescu

First Steps

Irina Maria Iliescu is a young graduate of the Art Institute in Bucharest. Her work shown this month, as a resident artist @ ArtXpert Gallery  is unique in the Romanian art scene at the moment. Few local artist dare to be pop artists, this aestetics being considered too soft in this part of the world. Irina Maria Iliescu (22) is a complete product of the “free world”- she’s born after the fall of communism. Her 10 paintings (oil on canvas), colorful and well executed talk about the way we teach kids to become consumers from a very young age. At a first read, the images are inoffensive – just some vending machines filled with candy. Deep inside there is a different approach. Most of these inoffensive machines  that we find in little shops, parks and markets, are in fact  consumer impuls  generators. Irina Maria Iliescu’ s work point exactly to the perverted mind of the adults that are making money out of children meanwhile creating a buying habit for them.

 

As previously mentioned, her work is unique in this part of the world but has deep roots in the history of pop art: Wayne Thiebaud who in early 50’s painted a series of cheep ordinary objects concentrating on slices of pie, soda fountains and ice cream cones, also passing on the craft to the much younger Mel Ramos.

Wayne Thiebaud

 

Irina Maria Iliescu’s show that runs from 27^th of September to 15^th on October at ArtXpert Gallery in Bucharest is a strong connection in time over the pure pop art of the early 50’s and 60’s.