Irina Valentina Ciobanu

I was born in the village of Valea Popii, Călărași County, 60 km away from Bucharest, in a wonderful family that always encouraged my artistic side. As a graduate in Philosophy, specializing in the History of Culture and Religions, my thesis topic was "Aniconism and Icon." For years, I have painted and continue to paint icons that have the Byzantine style as their starting point. At the age of 18, I was actually employed for almost a year in the icon workshop of Mr. Leon Craioveanu. I then worked on several restoration sites and started collaborating with the galleries of the Romanian Artists' Union. This was followed by numerous exhibitions (about 16-17 years ago, I had an exhibition of leather paintings at Hanul cu Tei, and a few years ago, "Grace and Movement," which included a series of 21 large-scale works also painted on this support), art creation camps in Romania and abroad, and various collaborations. I would like to mention a few projects that are very dear to me: my collaboration with DPH Publishing House and writer Claudia Marinescu, which resulted in the wonderful children's book "Where is My Little House," which I lovingly illustrated; Regno Recaș, where I portrayed the taste of white, red, and rosé wines. I created allegorical, Arcimboldo-like characters that contained all the elements from the respective wine bouquet. Many of my works are in private collections all over the world (Dubai, Switzerland, America, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, France, and probably many other countries). These works were created using various techniques (tempera and oil on wood, oil on canvas, watercolor, tempera with egg on leather, watercolor on leather, ink on leather, ink on paper, acrylic on canvas, oil on canvas, enamel on metal or glass).