Daniela Fainis

The Cycle: Terraforming III-decorative-art-daniela-fainis




Critical References


In Daniela Fainis’ herbariums, made from manually shaped China clay, drawn and slit with coloured pigments and cobalt oxide, bundles of line suggest rods of plants broken and pressed so as to endure despite their typological precariousness; as in the most coveted pieces of amber bearing within them traces of times gone by (remember that for such precious materials a veritable road – a king’s road, in fact, was traced centuries ago, as was in the case of silk, but in another direction), these parietal objects have from time to time fostered the survival of fragile stalks or inflorescences.

With a final breath and as a triumph of vitality, pulsating with underground energies, an oversized leaf is brought to the forefront of the structure and within the predictable routes of imagery, highlighting them; a careful analysis – and Daniela Fainis’ work requires such an approach and suggests the virtual routes adorned by aesthetic exhilaration – yet it also highlights the frailty of the leaf, in whose colour and consistency the Fates have already been shown glimpses of a rite of passage.Doina Pauleanu PhD, art critic and director of the Constanta Art museum.

In a world where most people try to do something other than their qualifications, Daniela Fainis builds what she knows best - simple ceramic shaes. Even if their relationship with space and, in many cases, dimensions, proportions and figurativism refer to sculpture, even if the drawings that animate the surface or comment on volume refer to graphics or even if the wall objects, with minimal volumetry, can invoke the idea of painting, of painting, that has absolutely no importance.

Daniela Fainis does neither graphics, nor sculpture nor painting or, on the contrary, she does all three at the same time, and some tapestry on top of that, but she does them from a perspective and a stylistic angle that are only decorative.

Through its self-sufficient forms, its refusal of any imposed transcendence of the image, its perfect collaboration with the material and its impeccable mastery of techniques - from warm modeling to austere detail, from sanguine pulse to industrial frigidity and from geometric or ironically accented drawing to unadulterated burning - the artistic approach is a decorative commentary - a play of spectacular surfaces and humble existences - on the world itself. Although the artist makes voluptuous use of the figurative image, both in three-dimensional and in drawing, although she plays insistently with the idea of portraiture, in fact with that of self-portraiture, and many of her works could be associated, in intention and purpose, with sculpture, a closer look reveals nothing that betrays any attempt to step out of her own universe. The series of heads, easily assimilated to a portrait gallery, has actually nothing to do with portraiture. While the sculptor individualizes, palpates psychologies and probes the inner life of the character, Daniela Fainis builds generic faces, directs blank expressions and finally sets in motion a hallucinatory world of masks.

The human face does not fascinate by its sense of eternity, by the idea of the incorporation of the divine in the transitory and, in conclusion, neither does it claim that immortality that the sculptor tries to identify and recover, but it is seen rather as an ambient piece in a universe saturated with forms, expressions and substances with different densities. And however varied they may be morphologically, in terms of existential regime or state of aggregation, Daniele Fainis' objects are not subject to any hierarchical scheme and have, environmentally, the same status, and in relation to the material and technique they have the same value as document and witness. The tiny object commenting on the honeycomb structure and porosity of the coral, the textile frozen in the porcelain emulsion, the vegetal meanders, the human face exfoliating to reveal, with bitter irony, its mechanical intimacy and the barely camouflaged vacuum bags, have the same individual importance and together build an inexhaustible image of a world at once alive and frozen. Daniela Fainis' imagination, both narrative and plastic, is absolutely prodigious and perfectly coherent in expression, language and finished form. Free from any aggressiveness and totally liberated from the traumatizing obsessions of everyday life, his art is powerful and overwhelming by itself; by the consistency of its design, by the clarity of the project, by the impeccable knowledge of material and technique and, above all, by the weightlessness that unites them all and which the viewer is free to call as they see fit. - Pavel Susara, art critic

Daniele Fainis's works from the cycle ”Pietre de hotar” (”Milestones”), stylistically and technically related - it is hand shaped porcelain, incised and painted in successive layers of the same material, baked at 1340°C. - with ”Fereastra” (”Window”), they plunge us into the mysterious atmosphere of the rites of passage; the boundary, however, is not an anonymous milestone, and the window cannot be the opening made in just any wall; they indicate and trace the path to the light open to all, but accessible only to the worthy. In ”Ierbar” (”Herbarium”) - the series the artist has been working on lately - the contrasts are sustained not only linearly, but also chromatically. Flowers of auroral freshness emerge from dried, charred, frozen, petrified vegetation, like signs of life pulsating anytime and almost anywhere. -Dr. Doina Pauleanu, art critic and Director of the Constanta Art Museum




Resume


Fine artist – member of the Romanian Union of Fine Artists

Date of birth: Octomber 3, 1961 - Romania

Education:

1981-1985 – “Nicolae Grigorescu” Art Academy, Bucharest

Personal Exhibitions:

*2007-2008     Palatele Brancovenesti Cultural Center – Bucharest, Romania

*2007              Botanical Garden – Bucharest, Romania

*2004              Lapidarium – Palatele Brancovenesti Cultural Center – Mogosoaia, Romania

*2003              Prometheus Club – Bucharest, Romania

2003                Accademia di Romania – Roma, Italy

*2002              Allianz – Tiriac Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

2001                Sanshokan Museum – Hida Furukawa, Japan

2001                “Titu Maiorescu“ Cultural Centre – Berlin, Germany

2000                Paris Cultural Centre, France

*1999              Brukenthal Museum Sibiu - Romania

1999                Council of Europe - Strasburg – France

*1998              Round Hall Gallery National Theatre – Bucharest, Romania

1996                “The Gerhart- Hauptman Foundation” Gallery – Dusseldorf, Germany

1992                “The Gerhart- Hauptman Foundation” Gallery – Dusseldorf, Germany

1992                “Simeza” Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

1992                “La Source” Gallery – Brussels, Belgium

1989         Mamaia Art Gallery, Romania

1988         Mamaia Art Gallery – Mamaia, Romania

Group Exhibitions:

2014         Senso Gallery – Decorative Art Exhibition – Bucharest, Romania

2013         International Exhibition of Contemporary Art – „Keramik in Steinbruch” – Oberpullendorf, Austria

2013         “Shades of White’ Galateea Gallery’ – Bucharest, Romania

2012         Simeza Gallery “International Exhibition of Contemporary Art – Bucharest, Romania

2011         Cotroceni Museum, National Hall of Decorative Art, 12th Edition, – Bucharest, Romania

2011         Orizont Gallery Art Hall – Bucharest, Romania

2011         Ceramics in Steinbruch - Austria

2010         Romanian Contemporary Ceramic Art – Romanian Cultural Institute – Paris, France

2009         Romanian Ceramics Today – Palatele Brancovenesti Mogosoaia, Romania

2008-2009       Palace of Parliament, Constantin Brancusi Hall – Bucharest, Romania

2006         Crossing by Crossing – Simeza Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

2006         International Action Art – Club UNESCO – Piraeus, Greece

2006         Marathon Museum - Greece

2004         Romanian and Finnish Art – Municipality of Bucharest Museum

2004         Spring Hall - Mogosoaia

2003         Apollo Gallery –Bucharest, Romania

2003         „Simeza” Gallery – „Options” – Bucharest, Romania

2002         International Art Exhibition “Remember – Creative Women by the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea “– Bucharest, Romania

2001         International Art Exhibition „Remember – Creative Women by the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea” – Bucharest, Romania

*2000       International Art Exhibition „Remember – Creative Women by the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea” – Thessaloniki, Greece

2000         Cotroceni Museum – Bucharest, Romania

2000         World Exhibition – Hannover, Germany

1999         Art Hal – Institute of Architecture – Bucharest, Romania

1999         International Fair of Visual Arts – Cotroceni Palace – Bucharest, Romania

1998         Art Hall – Dalles Hall – Bucharest, Romania

* 1997      International Art Exhibition „Remember – Creative Women by the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea” – Thessaloniki, Greece

1996         Constanta  Art Museum, Romania

1996         “Gala” Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

1995         Inter-Balkan Cooperation Society of Romanian Women – 45 Fine Artists - from Romania – Bucharest, Romania

1995         Decorative Art Hall – Cotroceni National Museum – Bucharest, Romania

1995         Monselice Castle – Italy

1994         Honolulu – Hawaii – United States of America

1994         Maui – Hawaii – United States of America

1994         Aubum – New York – United States of America

1994         National Theatre Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

1993         Romanian Pavillion –Taejon, South Korea

1993         Baltimore – Maryland – United States of America

1994         Pittsburgh – Pennsylvania – United States of America

1992         „Artothecke” – Berlin, Germany

1992         „Nimagine 92 Espace Roumain”- Nimes, France

1991         Art Triennial of the National Theatre Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

1988         Decorative Art Exhibition – Eisenstadt, Austria

1988         Decorative Art Exhibition – Berlin, Germany

1989         “Dalles Hall“ Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

1989         “Eforie” Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

1990         Bucharest Art Museum, Romania

1988         Bucharest Art Museum, Romania

1988         “Dalles Hall“ Gallery– Bucharest, Romania

1988         National Theater Gallery – Bucharest, Romania

1988         Annual Exhibition – Bucharest, Romania

1987         Museum of Glass and Ceramics – Dorohoi, Romania

1987         Museum of Glass and Ceramics – Dorohoi, Romania

1987         “Studio 35“ – Botosani – Romania

1986         “Galeria Luchian“ – Botosani – Romania

Symposiums

2011           International Painting Symposium – Patra - Greece

2007-2008   1st International Convention of Modern Arts Symposium–Stuttgart -

Germany

2004           National Camp of Contemporary Fine Art, 3rd Edition

Todireni- Romania

2004           Ceramics Symposium –Compared Art Museum Sangiorz Bai - Romania

2003           “Heavens on Fire“ Ceramics Symposium – Sangiorz Bai - Romania

2000          “Support Organization for Overseas Ceramics” Symposium – Tajimi- Japan

1999           “Hamangia” International Symposium of Ceramics– Constanta – Romania

1996           “Hamangia” International Symposium of Ceramics– Constanta – Romania

1992           “Contemporary East European Ceramics” Symposium – Philadelphia

United States of America

1988           Ceramics Symposium – Dorohoi - Romania

1987           Ceramics Symposium – Dorohoi - Romania

International Competitions

*2003         6th International Biennial of Artistic Ceramics –Manises - Spain

*2002         6th International Ceramics Competition -Mino – Japan

*2001         “Fire Arts” International Biennial - Bucharest – Romania

*1998         “Fire Arts” International Biennial - Bucharest – Romania

*1998         5th International Ceramics Competition -Mino – Japan

*1997         5th International Biennial of Artistic Ceramics– Aveiro – Portugal

*1996         4th International Biennial of Miniatures – Yugoslavia

*1992         3rd International Ceramics Competition - Mino – Japan

*1992         XXXII Concorso Internazionale Della Ceramica D’arte Gualdo

Tadino-Perugia-Italy

*1991         5th International Triennial of Ceramics – Sopot – Poland

*1990         XXX Concorso Internazionale Della Ceramica D’arte Gualdo Tadino

Perugia – Italy

*1989         XXIX Concorso Internazionale Della Ceramica D’arte Gualdo Tadino

Perugia – Italy

Prizes and Awards

2010         « Flacara Award for Fine Arts » edition 2010 – Bucharest - Romania

2004         “Cultural Merit“ with the Rank of Commander – awarded by the President of Romani

*2002        “Honourable Mention “- Mino – Japan

*1998        “Honourable Mention “- Mino – Japan

*1998        The “Alexandru Tipoia“ Award for Best Exhibition of the Year – Bucharest -Romania

*1998        Grand Prize of the “Fire Arts” International Biennial – Bucharest -  -Romania

*1997        1st Prize – International Biennial of Artistic Ceramics – Aveiro – Portugal

*1997        Cotroceni National Museum Award – Bucharest – Romania

*1992        “Award of the Union of Fine Artists for Decorative Art“- Romania

*1992        “Honourable Mention “- Mino – Japan

*1990        “Youth Prize – Decorative Art” – Romania

*1990        “Targa d’Oro“ (Gold Medal) XXXI Concorso Internazionale Della

Ceramica D’arte Gualdo Tadino - Perugia – Italy

*1989        “Targa d’Oro“ (Gold Medal) XXX Concorso Internazionale Della

Ceramica D’arte Gualdo Tadino - Perugia – Italy

*1988        “Scholarship for Decorative Art“ – Bucharest – Romania

Works in Museums and Collections

European Parliament‘s Art Collection Brussels – Belgium

National Museum of Contemporary Art –Bucharest -Romania

“The Clay Studio Collection“ – Philadelphia – United States of America

Museum of Ceramics and Glass – Dorohoi – Romania

Cotroceni National Museum - Bucharest – Romania

Medgidia Art Musuem- Romania

Constanta County Library – Romania

B.C.I.C. Bank – Craiova – Romania

Societe Generale Securites – Bucharest – Romania

ING. Bank N.V. – Bucharest – Romania

The “Support Organization for Overseas Ceramist“ Foundation – Tajimi – Japan

Ogiso School – Tajimi – Japan

“Kano“ High School – Gifu-shi   -Japan

“Gudov“ House – Private Collection - Bucharest – Romania

Raiffeisen Bank –Bucharest - Romania

National and Foreign Publications

Info News –Pavel Susara – Tress from Another Planet http:/www.infonews.ro/article74276.html

Aug 21 Sep 11, 2009 The Kingdom of Porcelain - Formula AS http://www.formula- as.ro/2009/883/planete-culturale-30acasa-la-daniela-fainis-11529-print

Jan 2009   Artists Workshops in Bucharest Part 2

May 05, 2008   Casa Lux – Porcelain Miracles – Cristina Foarfa p 212-217

May 07-13, 2008   Academia Catavencu – The Palace with a Porcelain and Stainless Steel Garden-Ioan T Morar

Oct 24, 2007    Adevarul – Mogosoaia Palace – Porcelain Garden and Landscapes

Abstracts http://www.adevarul.ro/articole/2007

August 2007   A Home for Your House – The Fine Virtues of Ceramics – Luana Ibacka

2008 no 801 Formula AS - Cultura – Porcelain Mogosoaia – Valentin Iaco

July 20, 2007   Ziarul Financiar« Ziarul de Duminica » - The Porcelain Grove –

Corneliu  Antim

Feb 16, 2007    Ziarul Financiar – Visions of the Kaolin Lady – Corneliu Antim

Apr 28, 2006    Curierul Atenei – The Romanian Embassy in Athens – A Gate Open to Romanians

Oct 23 2003     Romania Libera – At the « Prometheus », Large Scale Ceramics Exhibition (D.S.)     p. 7

Oct 21-27, 2003   Academia Catavencu – Sculpture, Porcelain Baubles – Ioan T. Morar p. 22

Aug 03, 2002        Adevarul – A World of Porcelain – F Dobrescu p. 3, http://www.adevarul.ro/articole/2002/o-lume-din-portelan.html

July 08-09, 2002   Insurance Market p. 6

July 13, 2002    Romania Libera – Daniala Faini’ Exhibition at Allianz – Tiriac

Ion Andreita   - p. 2

Nov 30, 2001  Ziarul Financiar Ziarul de Duminica – Leaves of Our Lives – Cornel Radu Constantinescu p. 7

Nov 24, 2000    Ziarul Financiar Ziarul de Duminica   -Through Someone Else’s Eyes – Cornel

Radu Constantinescu p.7

02-03 2000     Le courrier du centre - Propos recuellis par Simona Modreanu

culturel Roumain

Winter 1999-2000   Millennium III nr. 4 -Workshop of Ideas and Projects for

European Integration and Global Civilisation

7-13 Oct, 1998 Romania Literara   -Revenge of the Decorative Arts –

Pavel Susara Fine Review p. 16

Oct 02, 1998     Curentul cultural - Mino ‘98   - Corneliu Antim

Sep 11, 1998   Adevarul – An Exceptional Exhibition - Cornel Radu Constantinescu p. 8

Sep 15, 1998   Romania Literara –The Porcelain Sculpture of Daniela Fainis – Livia Stoenescu

Sep 07, 1998   Curentul – Effigies under the Moon - Lucian Popescu

May 4-10, 1998   Radio Romania –Ideal Beauty – Viorica Ghita Teodorescu

March 17, 1998  Adevarul literar si artistic -Dantesca in White – Cornel Radu Constantinescu p. 7

Dec 08 1997    National Grand Prize at the « International Biennial of

Artistic Ceramics » for Romanian Daniela Fainis - Tudor Octavian p. 6

Nov 14-30, 1997 Memorandum   - 5th International Biennial of Artistic Ceramics Aveiro/97

October 1992   Ceramics Monthly -East European Ceramics by Jimmy Clark

June 06, 1991   Romania Literara – An Organ of Tender Touches - Tudor Octavian

Fine Review - p. 17

* Catalogue