270 x 130 x 130 cm
106 1/4 x 51 1/8 x 51 1/8 in
300 x 150 x 150 cm
118 1/8 x 59 1/8 x 59 1/8 in
350 x 190 x 190 cm
137 3/4 x 74 3/4 x 74 3/4 in
The exhibition "Secret Garden"by Alina Aldea took place at Cultural Center "Brâncoveneşti Palace", Mogoşoaia between 14th December 2019 - 25th February 2020.
"Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.", Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Garden, 1911
Alina Aldea thinks her artistic projects within a conceptual minimalist language. The idea, the concept, the notion is what triggers the structural elements of the drawings and installations. Drawings and installations create a world in themselves; the idea can no longer be separated from form at this stage of existence.
The impressive size installations of Alina Aldea are often designed in a permanent dialogue with the exhibition space. For this reason, although there are similar elements, they have infinite versatility, both as a way of presentation and as a way of interpretation. The game with the viewer, his immersion in the installation, through which he can often penetrate or interact, becomes a constant in the artist's creation.
The "Secret Garden" is what we can call a site-specific exhibition, which consists of a series of drawings, a large installation of mirrors, fur and fur balls and a mini plant-geometric installation.
The drawings signed by Alina Aldea show the meticulousness and perfection of a microscopic observation. The "Cells" series projects on the surface of black paper elements that generate the progression of biotic systems that coexist with artificial systems. The cell, as the point, marks the idea of beginning, of microunivers. Alina Aldea's creation is dominated by the idea of experiment, thorough research and obsession with perfection. The vegetal forms that develop in the series of drawings "The Secret Garden", from which the title of the exhibition comes, evoke a hybrid, magical, wide world, a self-contained macrocosm in which different forms, materials, can live.
The central installation entitled "Out of the Black - 02" is part of a wide range of installations spatially designed on the idea of the contrasting relationship between biomorphic and geometric elements. These elements produce through mirrored reflections - the theme of the mirror and the concept of the mirror being a constant in the artist's creation - an optical illusion that alters the viewer's perception. The game of perception, reflection, direct or indirect mirroring reconstitutes a path of retrieval and self-definition. The column symbolically represents the connection between heaven and earth. Saussier interprets the "self" as being in Brâncuşi "a subject of the essence of becoming" and in this context the Brâncuşian column, the axis mundi, would represent the essence of life, the repeated form being a symbol of the life cycles, of the birth-death duality. For Alina Aldea, the column is represented by a matrix effect, which is due to the mirrors arranged horizontally and vertically. What is interesting to mention here in relation to those stated by Saussier, is the way in which the self - interior and exterior - is reflected through the mirror, being a mode of reflection and self-reflection. The fur and fluff elements that project themselves on the surface of the mirror describe an erosion of the system, interference, a removal of the archetype. If the matrix effect alludes to the virtual world, technologically dominated, the elements of fur and the fragility of the fluff send the thought to the beginnings of the world.
The vegetale-geometrical mini-installation, "Q-02", is designed as a link between the drawing series and the "Out of the Black - 02" installation. The vegetal element is used to represent the symbiosis that arises within a juxtaposition, at first sight improper, between two systems. The branches emerge this time from a geometric structure, which reminds us of an urban living system.
The space that Alina Aldea takes over is architecturally designed; it is a space marked by an urban experience, which is subject to systemic dispositions and mathematical rigor. Even if there are vegetal elements or shapes taken from the vegetal world or the use of organic matter such as fur, branches, everything is thought and built according to predetermined rules, nothing is accidental.
The viewer moves within an exhibition geography clearly predetermined by the artist, in dialogue with it, only through the mirrors. Mirrors are those that by reflection offer a kaleidoscope of possible situations and interpretations.
Curator: Diana Dochia, PhD
