Plumbing her own history as well as that of the village she grew up in, Andreea Medar builds on the themes of tradition, its decay, and our relationship with preserving it in her latest work, which was on display at Art Fair Philippines 2024.

Words Jaymes Shrimski
April 17, 2024

Racoți is an isolated village in the Oltenia region of southern Romania which has slowly been abandoned by its villagers over time.

As recently as the early 90s, however, Racoți and other villages in the countryside of Romania were seeing an influx of children. As Romania transitioned to a post-communist state and the country embarked on the process of moving forward from an oppressive regime under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s government, financial conditions proved difficult, so it was a common practice among parents to send their children to the countryside to be raised by their grandparents.

So says conceptual artist Andreea Medar, who grew up in Racoți. “I was privileged to be raised by my grandmother, a former educator who taught me how to write, read, and draw without having to go to school until the age of seven.” It was in this village, surrounded by houses which date back to the 1700s, playing among rich customs and traditions, in landscapes which changed vividly with the seasons, that Andreea found subjects for her first drawings.

“I can say that from childhood, I was drawn to the visual arts field,” she says. Though there was no specific moment that cemented her desire to pursue art, she made the decision to study at a high school specializing in it, following this interest all the way through bachelor’s and master’s degrees before completing her doctorate at the Faculty of Arts in Timișoara.

Andreea is an award-winning artist whose work has been stored in the permanent collection of The National Contemporary Art Museum of Romania (MNAC), Bucharest and The Art Museum of Timișoara. Now working out of Târgu Jiu and Timișoara, both cities in Romania, Andreea’s practice includes objects and environments, sculptures, media installations, and videos. Having experienced life in a town which has depopulated over time, the themes of rural community, ritual, change, dissolution, and preservation naturally manifest in Andreea’s work—the flames of which are often fanned by autobiographical nods.

LEFTOVERS FROM THE FUTURE

Art Fair Philippines 2024 goers had the chance to catch Andreea’s latest installation, an immersive experience of fluorescent and phosphorescent threads, beads, glass crystals and natural stones, all in a darkened setting, gently set to glow by specialized lighting. The house, and pertinently, the plants and leaves that surrounded it, constructed of plastic and hand-sewn together, appeared ghostly, with veins prominently running through each element like a circulatory system.

“Images of the house appear as a backdrop in the two works displayed
on the wall,” says Andreea, “illustrat ing scenes of my grandmother’s daily routine and the Easter celebration with friends and family.” The fine details in these smaller images – the patterns on the bed sheets, the natural facial creases indicative of age, the patches of color on clothing, the sense of space and proportion – are all created through sewing, a technique which Andreea wields deliberately. “Through my artworks,” she says, “I strive to carry on local traditions and customs in a symbolic form. That’s why most of my recent works are hand-sewn, as in this way I try to continue this tradition dedicated to women that has existed in the village for hundreds of years.”

The overall image that is Leftovers From the Future found its genesis in Andreea standing in front of her family’s gardening plot a year after it had been abandoned. The land had changed. What was once meticulously maintained by generations of gardening tradition deeply rooted in Andreea’s family now rested in front of her as a wild flurry of plants – a sea of them, in which some vegetables still managed to grow – “seemingly wanting to continue this deeply rooted tradition in the village for generations,” adds Andreea.