My name is Raluca-Ana-Maria Macovei and I am an artist.
I was born in 1994 in Bârlad, a small town in the Eastern part of Romania.
Since I was a child I have enjoyed drawing and, more than anything, painting. I spent my childhood in an imaginary world created through drawings and paintings, depicting the reality I was living: my parents, my grandparents’ house, animals, as well as seascapes with mermaids and gardens.
Later on, I attended the Visual Arts department of the Pedagogical High School in Barlad, specialising in painting. After a year, I moved to Bucharest to finish my high school studies in an Art School.
2013-2016 – I attended the National University of Arts in Bucharest, where I studied Fine Art, specifically Painting. During my time there, I was mentored by an extremely talented artist and dedicated pedagogue, who taught me the importance of self-knowledge and sincerity in the artistic process, to be able to produce authentic and timeless works of art.
2016-2018 – After graduating, I continued my Master’s studies for a period of two years. At the same time, I studied two pedagogical modules necessary for teaching, having discovered a vocation in this sense and a real pleasure to teach Art in schools.
Immediately after finishing my Master’s and pedagogical studies, I spent a year studying for the national exam for teaching in state education in Romania, which took place the following year.
I passed the national entrance exam and became a Visual Arts Teacher.
The career of a Visual Arts Teacher and that of an artist are closely related and none of them is easy. As a teacher, I have been passing all the challenging exams that are part of the role. As an artist, I have been striving and getting out of my comfort zone to show my vulnerability through art.
Since 2019 I have been interested in reproducing what I observe in nature, both outside me and inside. The themes I have been approaching are linked to the spaces and contexts in which I spend my time during certain periods of my life. An example of such a theme is the workshop I was working in at university, having focused my art on details surrounding the objects and people around me. The importance of this theme has also been reflected in my dissertation whose title was “Workshop 22”.
Another theme I have been exploring since university has been the public transport theme. Using public transport daily, I carry a notebook with me and enjoy drawing elements of the space and the people around, trying to depict as accurately as possible the different facial expressions of those around me.
During my Master’s studies, I focused exclusively on the study of plants and generally nature, a theme reflected in my dissertation called ‘Observation of nature’. I started exploring this theme by drawing the plants figuratively at first, but later on developed a different understanding through a year and a half of intense study. Observing nature in so much detail and studying its exterior helped me deepen my understanding of its interior, enabling me to create abstract art based on it.
After about a year of exploring abstract shapes, I returned to figurative drawing based on my self-portrait and objects around me in different contexts. I approached this subject using many different techniques such as collage, drawing on paper with charcoal, cut-outs, small sculptures and acrylic on canvas. Currently my interest is to explore the various techniques I can use to build on this theme.