Romanian Artist Connection

We salute the creation of the Romanian Artist CONNEction, a new workgroup of Romanian visual artists from Connecticut which will be part of Romanul Corp. The initiators of this group are the artists Ioana Barac, Luiza Budea, Ileana Dumitriu & Adrian Panaitisor. Among other ideas, they plan activities to promote their work, disseminate information about art and increase the visibility of the Romanian community in Connecticut.

The first meeting took place on Sunday, November 13, 2022 at the The New Old School of Music in West Hartford, CT, owned by musician Mirela Panaitisor.

The group invites artists with similar interests in visual arts to join them. For more details, please email us at info@theromanian.org, contact the artists directly or stay tuned for more info to come on this page.

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. In the picture, left to right: Jordan and Teri Tavernner, Luiza Budea, Ioana Barac, Adrian Panaitisor, Ileana Dumitriu, and Ioana Hobai.

BIOS

Ioana Barac is a designer and maker of urban ornament and public sculpture, from flat pattern and shallow relief to elaborate, large scale works. In photography, as in sculpture and drawing, she explores the ancestral need for meaning and connection and the relation of the individual with the social and built environment. In producing her work, Barac strives to continue traditional methods of making and craft and to combine the technologically advanced and the hand made.

Initially trained in Bucharest, Romania, Barac has a B.S. from University of Hartford and a Master of Architecture from Yale University where she received the Moulton Andrus Award for Excellence in Art and Architecture. Barac is founding partner at Atelier Cue, a public art and place making studio committed to community engagement. Barac teaches design at University of Hartford.

Ileana Dumitriu is a New Haven architect and painter.

She has a Baccalaureate in Fine Arts from Tonitza College and a MArch from “Ion Mincu” Institute of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest, Romania.

She is a painter and a senior associate architect at Pelli Clarke and Partners in New Haven, CT.

Adrian Panaitisor is a West Hartford, CT conceptual artist who’s aiming to continue the work of the great Italian artists, Lucio Fontana and Agostino Bonalumi, as well as the Cuban artist Zilia Sánchez in merging two an three dimension art using the canvas surface as the most logical building block in achieving such a goal. BS in Electrical Engineering, and BFA in Graphic Design from University of Connecticut. Instructor of Contemporary Art at Manchester Community College, Mancester, CT. https://www.panaitisor.com/original-works

Ioana Hobai is a freelance illustrator and author of picture books from Lexington, MA. She has a B.Arch/M.Arch from the “Ion Mincu Institute of Architecture and Urbanism”, Bucharest, Romania. Her latest picture book, A WHALE OF A MISTAKE, was a finalist in the New England Book Awards 2020; LENA’S SLIPPERS, a story inspired by a childhood memory from her native Romania, was selected as a Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year, 2020 Edition. http://www.ioanahobai.com/

Iulian Budea is a Romanian-born artist living and exhibiting in New York City. He has attended a prestigious art school in NYC on a full scholarship. His work spans sculpture, painting, pen & ink and printmaking.

Iulian’s work connects elements that are central to a dual Romanian-American experience. It integrates old-world symbolism with surrealist and expressionist elements, into images with universal appeal. His sketches combine elements of Romania’s spiritual tradition, architectural elements pertaining to his dual heritage, symbols from Greek and Roman mythology, and the expressive human figure into a cohesive vision that has as much to teach us about ourselves as it reveals about our world.

https://members.rpacgallery.com/iulian-budea
https://www.saatchiart.com/account/profile/661204

Luiza Budea completed her artistic studies in New York City, where she has had two decades of experience in various creative fields. She lives in Ridgefield CT where she has organized several community arts endeavors, including Ridgefield Art on Main. Currently, she is a consultant for Rafael Gallery on Madison Ave., NYC, and Fine Arts Project Coordinator for the Honorary Consulate of Romania to CT, preparing the launch of the National Heritage Mural Project as collaboration among Romanian-American artists around CT.

https://luizabudea.com/