I loved writing and painting as a child in communist Romania, but the political and social climate before and after the Revolution of 1989 was not a good emotional and mental space for me to develop as an artist. Later, my art journey began as a response to a debilitating anxiety disorder I’ve been living with for years. At first, painting was a form of relief, but over time, and somewhat unexpectedly, through years of psychotherapy, it became something deeper: an exploration rather than an escape.

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​Through my work, I navigate my identity as someone who lived through the brutal and often surreal, absurd realities of a communist totalitarian regime and its legacy, before emigrating to the UK. Drawing on personal and collective memories from my formative years, and autobiographical storytelling, I explore the boundaries between drawing, painting, collage, and writing. I approach these as interconnected forms of mark-making and meaning-making. Colour often replaces words for expressing emotional states, the tonal quality of memories, and reflections that resist verbal communication. On the other hand, words and asemic marks become forms of drawing. This movement between text and image allows me to explore how meaning emerges. As both an artist and a writer, I emphasize the relationship between an artwork and its title. My process often begins in intuitive expression. Through revisiting the work and building layers, the image gradually reveals itself, along with its title. I rarely begin with a specific subject in mind. Instead, I start from a need for expression.