We salute the creation of the ROmanian ARTists CONNection, a new workgroup of Romanian visual artists from Connecticut which will be part of Romanul Corp. RoArtConn seeks to establish a stronger connection between local Romanian artists and the Romanian community, through exhibitions, events and artistic projects that will educate, inform and increase the visibility of the artistic contributions and achievements made by Romanian artists in America.
MEMBER ARTISTS
For more information about our artists, and additional artwork and projects, please visit their websites and social media pages
Luiza Budea
Luiza Budea is a painter, curator and digital media artist. She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union, NYC, which she attended on a full scholarship. She has lived and worked in New York City for over two decades prior to moving to Ridgefield, Connecticut. She is passionate about public art, seeking to bring her work into communal spaces through temporary large-scale sidewalk chalk drawings. Her drawings and paintings explore the basic organic and geometric patterns of life, visually mapping the growth structures common to all living things.
BYZANTINE ICONOGRAPHY
In addition to her personal drawings, paintings, her public art and her curatorial work in NYC, Luiza also enjoys creating religious Icons in the traditional egg tempera technique that has been practiced in Eastern Europe for centuries.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Mull Island, United Kingdom
In 2022 Luiza was commissioned to create 8 Icons for the small historical church of Kilninian, now part of the Orthodox Monastery of Celtic Saints on the Island of Mull in the Inner Herbides that border Scotland.
ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE
Traditional Egg Tempera
Egg Tempera is made by mixing the paint by hand using powdered pigment and fresh egg yolk. Luiza’s technique uses transparent layers of color and the natural texture of the pigment to create depth and luminosity. For more, visit her YouTube channel.
ABOUT BYZANTINE ICONS
Spanning the time between antiquity and the Middle Ages, Byzantine art encompassed an array of regional styles and influences and developed long-lasting Christian iconography that is familiar to practitioners today. Outliving the Byzantine Empire from whence it draws its name, it came to encompass Russia, Greece, Northern Africa and the Balkans, including present-day Romania.
Ioana Barac
Ioana Barac is a designer and maker of architectural ornament and public art. Barac has a Master of Architecture from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science from University of Hartford where she currently teaches design. She is principal and co-founding member of Atelier Cue, a New Haven based placemaking and public art studio committed to community engagement. She has created and participated in many local public arts projects and instalations in Connecticut and beyond.
Iulian Budea
Iulian Budea is a sculptor, painter and photographer living and working in New York City. He obtained a full scholarship from one of the most prestigious art schools in the US, The Cooper Union. He has continued to work and exhibit in New York over the past two decades.
His work unites an array of surrealist elements, expressionist distortion, architectural structures as well as cultural motifs from his mixed Romanian-American heritage, into a cohesive vision that speaks boldly, with powerful emotion and imagery.
VISUAL SEMANTICS
Ioana Hobai
Ioana Hobai is a freelance illustrator and author of award-winning picture books. She grew up in Bucharest, where she started to doodle as soon as she could hold a pencil. She learned to paint with the artist Eugen Gasca, and she attended the Nicolae Tonitza Fine Arts High School in Bucharest. She has a Master of Architecture from Ion Mincu Institute of Architecture and Urbanism. Ioana Hobai has worked as an architect both in the UK and the US and currently resides in from Lexington, MA.
ILLUSTRATED CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Ioana’s books can be purchased at Barnes&Noble, and Amazon, but please consider supporting your local independent bookstore by checking in with them first.
A WHALE OF A MISTAKE
Finalist New England Book Awards 2020
“A lyrical take on accepting an moving past one’s mistakes.” — School Library Journal
“A simple story to open a discussion on how to process mistakes, be they minnow —or whale-sized.”
— Kirkus Reviews
LENA’S SLIPPERS
Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year 2020
“Ballet lovers will feel a strong kinship with this aspiring ballerina.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Children from families who struggle financially might appreciate this gently empowering story.”
— Booklist
BEFORE YOU SLEEP
Written by Annie Cronin Romano, Illustrated by Ioana Hobai.
Adrian Panaitisor
Adrian Panaitisor was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1956. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut in 1995, and a Bachelor of Science from the McB Naval Academy (Romania) in 1980. Adrian Panaitisor has over fifty years experience as an artist, thirty as a graphic designer, and over twenty as an educator. He has exhibited extensively in the US and Europe, and he's the founder of the Art eSchool and the Art Pill blog.
Adrian's paintings incorporate constructed 3D elements with optical illusions of depth rendered two-dimensionally, to create artwork that has us questioning our perception of space and color.
Ileana Dumitriu
Ileana Dumitriu is an architect and a visual artist based in New Haven, Connecticut. She attended the Nicolae Tonitza Fine Arts High School in Bucharest, and she has a Master of Architecture from Ion Mincu Institute of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania.
In her free time, she enjoys painting and volunteering for public art projects in New Haven.
HOW TO JOIN
The group invites artists with similar interests to join them. For more details, please email us at info@theromanian.org, or contact the founding members directly.
Past Events
R O M A N I A N N A T I O N A L D A Y E X H I B I T 2022
Romanian Artist CONNEction members at the event organized by the Romanian Honorary Consulate in Hartford, CT on December 8, 2022 to celebrate the Romanian National Day.
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- Luiza Budea
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- Adrian Panaitisor, right
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- Ioana Hobai
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- Ileana Dumitriu
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- In the picture, left to right: Jordan and Teri Tavernner, Luiza Budea, Ioana Barac, Adrian Panaitisor, Ileana Dumitriu, and Ioana Hobai.
