Roberta Curcă

Notes, 2022-2023

ROBERTA CURCĂ
Notes, 2022-2023
pencil on handmade cotton paper
77 x 56.5 cm
(84.5 x 64.5 x 4 cm framed)

An ongoing series that uses marks, notes, scribbles, and personalized stencils to develop a language for documentation, Samples of Time and Space contains observations that range from landscape drawings to texts and data about the time of the year, season, and temperature.

In these works, data about the autumn-winter season is gathered in an attempt to capture the collective anxiety surrounding another year with extreme fluctuations in temperature and the artist’s personal anxiety related to the relentless passing of time, most prominent at the beginning of the year.

The works are grouped into categories such as stencils, samples, and notes. Indispensable elements in the Roberta Curcă’s arsenal, the stencils are presented as a form of process art; they are aesthetic tools shown as art objects.

The smaller drawing in the exhibition, titled Sample, builds upon the visuality of samples and sample books as it explores the abstract and figurative dimensions of both imaginary and real landscapes. The drawing is made on handmade paper, 100% cotton, a unique and almost precious material that contradicts the usual expectations we have of a sample book or palette.

The larger drawing is built around notes about landscapes encountered on Dâmbovița river, before it reaches Bucharest. Titled Notes, it expresses the anticipation of a snowy season that never comes, while defeatedly admitting that the environment seems to be falling apart.

Pivoting between personal and public, particular and universal, the works propose ways of documenting reality that draw on memory, randomness, and discharge of tension, while also showing a purposeful and systematic process that aims to reconcile the chaotic with the orderly.

Accelerator project is financed with the support of EEA Grants 2014-2021 within the RO-CULTURE Programme and is implemented by Asociația Culturală Eastwards Prospectus.

The EEA Grants represent the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway towards the reduction of economic and social disparities in Europe and towards strengthening the bilateral relations between the donor countries and the 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltics. The three donor countries cooperate closely with the EU through the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA). The donors have provided €3.3 billion through consecutive grant schemes between 1994 and 2014. For the period 2014-2021, the EEA Grants amount to €1.55 billion. More information is available on www.eeagrants.org and www.eeagrants.ro.

RO-CULTURE Programme is implemented in Romania by the Ministry of Culture through the Project Management Unit. The Programme aims at strengthening social and economic development through cultural cooperation, cultural entrepreneurship and cultural heritage management. The total budget amounts to almost 34 million EUR. For more details access: www.ro-cultura.ro.

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