What aspects of your cultural background do you draw the most inspiration from?

I was born in Romania but grew up in Austria since I was very little, and for the past 17 years I have been living in France. All these cultural environments have had their impact on my development, but generally I feel European. I don’t think there is any one of these cultural backgrounds that permeates particularly heavily through my work.

Working in the fashion industry was always the goal for you?

I studied fashion at first, and worked in this industry for a long time. So it was my goal for a certain length of time. But we all evolve and change and our desires, needs and ways of expression change too. So, over time I knew that the fashion industry was just not right for me anymore.

Tell us a bit about your artistic background. What motivated you to leave the fashion industry and return to working with art?

After many years of working in the fashion industry I grew weary of the constant speeding up of production cycles. There is no more time to really develop anything in a profound and satisfying manner, it’s a constant chase of deadlines and lagging behind with work. There are just too many collections to be produced, and at some point it all felt somewhat void of sense to me. I had to make my production more personal to fill that void and did not feel that the fashion environment could provide a platform for this. Clothes as they are considered nowadays did not seem like the right medium to me. I had to find out which medium was right for me, and it needed to be one which allows for a more personal expression, with less limitations. Textile art turned out to be what works best for me. The crafts I have learned in fashion is the basis for what I do now, so it was really a logical evolution for me. The materials I use have not changed, just the process, form and context.

Your art universe includes textiles and installations. Where does your love of multimedia come from?

Whether I work in an installative way actually depends on the type of work I produce – mostly in terms of format and size. All the works I produce are made in textile techniques. It’s the pieces themselves that will direct me towards how I install them, whether they function better in the space, or more classically on a wall.

If I understand correctly, medieval tapestries had an impact on your work. What makes this historical period significant to you?

I was curious about the history of this medium. The period between the 11th and 16th century saw the highest evolution of tapestry craftsmanship, a period that went from medieval time until the renaissance. I am relating to the European context, of course textile craft has had a different evolution and timeline in other cultures and parts of the world. Learning about it revealed so many interesting facts. I especially appreciate the enigmatic, somewhat mysterious quality of story telling in tapestries. Tapestries were the highest valued art form at a certain time, but they also carried a lot of symbolic value.

What does your work aim to say? And when did you first realize that you could tell stories through art?

My approach is totally intuitive and does not really aim at saying anything specific; usually I myself understand only later on why I would work on this or that motif; it’s more as if the works end up telling me things about myself, they tell me what happens to be important in my life at a given time. It’s almost like dreaming, like an unconscious process. I work with found images a lot, and in the endless mass of images the mind has to make a selection. I feel attracted to certain images, without knowing why. I learned more and more to trust that intuition and not question it too much. I trust that in the end it will all make sense to me somehow, and will in itself tell some sort of story, even if it is not a linear story.

Can you discuss your biggest success since starting your artistic journey?

For me personally my recent exhibition at Galerie Chloé Salgado was a success. It was a good collaboration with the gallerist and we were both quite happy with the reception and the outcome.

What does your creative work process look like? What are the different stages that you go through when you are working?

With the technique I am working with these days, I start with a collection of found images and also like to experiment with AI for generating images. There is no particular order how I pick the images I will use or rework as a base for the textile pieces.

I usually develop several works in parallel, see how they sit together, how these fragments start to communicate between each other. Perhaps there is a similarity to how designers build a collection: they make several garments and see how to fit them together, how they create a look. So beyond creating a look or a collection, I create some sort of story. I have to produce many works as I also end up discarding some of them. The process of making the works is quite time consuming and repetitive, but that’s something I enjoy. I can easily sit for 8 hours straight and work on the embroidery, while listening to audiobooks. In the end I brush the surface which is usually a moment of surprise, because I never know beforehand what the final effect will look like.

Can you talk about your biggest learning experience during the process of creating your work?

I have started to develop my practice not even three years ago, so until now basically everything has been a steep learning curve. One important aspect has been the choice of materials: how long lived do I want the works to be? How do materials age in time? It’s more the practical things to consider that I needed to adapt to, which forced me to make some changes in my practice.

What memorable responses have you had to your work?

I found it quite funny when an online article about my last exhibition was titled « Artworks you can clean with a Dyson. » It has also happened that people had rather visceral reactions of disgust, related to the hairy texture of the images. Others want to rub their faces against them…it’s all very interesting.

Have you experimented with other mediums?

I made two video works for my first exhibition « Day’s Eye » which I showed in Vienna. This is a medium I would love to experiment some more with in the future, but probably not right now.

Where do you think that drive to always push further comes from?

I guess that comes from different places. On the one hand : to keep things interesting for myself. If at any point I would feel like there is nothing left to learn (which is impossible of course) it would not make any sense to continue. And the other point is that any idea or motif can potentially be expressed in different media: so there is the goal to find the most interesting or challenging medium. There is so much to explore in textile though, I think one can keep busy with that for several life times.

Do you have any unique rituals or habits in your studio?

Quite honestly, I don’t think I do anything very unique in my studio. It’s all very common!

What’s your daily ritual?

The only ritual I cannot function without is something very banal – a coffee as soon as I wake up. I also try to get a daily hour of meditation back into my routine but that one’s a bit harder!

What music is currently on repeat in your studio?

At the moment it’s a playlist I made, with Qendresa, Okay Kaya, Tirzah, Louis Baloue, The Style Council, John Martyn, The Internet and some others.

What’s something every artist should know?

I do not claim to hold any universal knowledge…but I’d say something helpful is to really not take oneself or one’s work as very important. It makes the process more enjoyable.