Background Stories Number 9

Artist Cristina Popovici draws from her experience and classical training in Fine Arts, adopting the fundamental European aspects of classical arts into her practice of abstract expressionism. Not only has this allowed full self expression, but through this she has gained confidence in artistic decision making and freedom to explore through abstract expressionism.

Throughout her career, Cristina has produced a large body of artworks exploring a range of support mediums, including traditional canvas, Perspex, PVC, fibre glass, and metal stencils, along with paint ranging from industrial paint, glass paint, ink, plaster, acrylic, spray paints and oils. These materials are the tool with which she expresses her vocabulary of techniques accumulated over the years.

Cristina does not sketch or plan works prior to making them, instead working through a process of internalisation, where energy and emotion grows and builds until it bursts through gestures and transposes onto the canvas.

For Cristina, there is no separation between body, mind and spirit, in the sense that the body is like a vessel for the energy to express itself, in this way her art focuses not on where her inspirations come from, but how she processes and expresses those inspirations.

"Lately, I have put more focus on action painting, where I analyze the development of mark making from abrupt and instant brush strokes to slow motion pouring. In this way, motion is present in my work as energy preserved in the artistic media I use. In some artworks, motion is used to disrupt the flowing of the paint and create intensity through lines, in others I have allowed paint to settle and seep into calming rhythms." – Cristina Popovici