SENSO Gallery, together with ”CATENA pentru arta” (“Catena for Art”), the Association of Women in Visual Arts from Romania, and FILDAS Art, inaugurated on Wednesday, the 8th of November 2017, at the National Library of Romania, in the Euphoria and Symposium Halls, the International Exhibition of Creative Women EUROPEAN BRIDGES 2004-2017.
A novel and large-scale artistic manifestation, the exhibition includes a selection of more than one hundred painting and sculpture works, created by artists from Romania and from other European countries, over the course of a thirteen-year period, as part of the EUROPEAN BRIDGES project.
The exhibition’s inaugural was given by the critic and Doctor of Art History, Doina Pauleanu, an expert of Senso Gallery and the manager of the Museum of Art in Constanta.
“PODURI EUROPENE” (EUROPEAN BRIDGES), a platform between countries and cultures
Intended to establish, with the feminine artistic contribution, new bridges between the countries and cultures which want and are able to communicate, the“PODURI EUROPENE” (“EUROPEAN BRIDGES”) project was born in 2004, at the initiative of the artist Rodica Xenia Constantin, president of the Association of Women in Visual Arts from Romania. Every year, in EUROPEAN BRIDGES Creation Retreats held in in Romana (Constanta, Eforie Sud), women artists from France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Belgium, and Turkey were invited, and the Romanian artists exhibited in European galleries from Paris, Berlin et. al. In the country, ample exhibitions have been held at Bucharest, Sibiu, Cluj and Constanta, with the works created by the artists participating in the EUROPEAN BRIDGES Symposiums.
Every year, its prestige has been rising, and, so, in 2017, it celebrated a jubilee edition, its 15th.
The International Workshop of Contemporary Feminine Creation EUROPEAN BRIDGES was held, this year also, in the period 27 May – 11 June 2017, at Eforie Sud, and it culminated with the vernissage from the Constanta Museum of Art, which was held in June.
“The EUROPEAN BRIDGES international exhibition of painting and sculpture, which, after 15 editions of the retreat with the same name, is at a time of retrospection, is organized by the Fildas Art Foundation, the Association of Women in Visual Arts from Romania and the Catena pharmacies, through the “Catena pentru Arta”( “Catena for Art”) programme. Being opened with an impressive number of works at the National Library of Romania, the event aims to highlight feminine creativity, which has been of a very select tradition in the last two centuries of Romanian arts. Painting and sculpture works are created within the workshop held at Eforie Sud every year. The creative ladies worked at a fast pace, with inspiration and consistency, being conquered by the selected venue, to which the great interwar generation granted the privileged status of solar avenue of Romanian painting, as well as by the emulation and the conviviality generated by joint living and working. The workshop-retreat did not aim for a return to atmospheric painting, restrictive themes, mandatory props (seashells, waves, storms, rocks, ships in danger, although, it is true, these things are more uncommon in the chosen season, time and place), instead it wanted and was able to bring together – courtesy of Mrs Anca Vlad’s patronage of the arts – renowned creators, and citadel rights in European visual arts, with a propensity towards the reality transposed through the filters of contemporary sensibility, as well as towards the monumental and the abstract. The selection of participants, from which any random factor was excluded by choice and outlook, gave rise to meetings between generations and personalities, between artists in formation and in confirmation periods, having managed, with each retreat and exhibition event, to spark off an atmosphere of intercultural communication. The retrospective organized by the National Library is the time of a festive review, one which can confirm the viability, the contemporaneousness and the interest of the project”- Doina Pauleanu PhD, manager of the Constanta Art Museum.
The Association of Women in Visual Arts from Romania has been supported by the Fildas Art Foundation (President Anca Vlad) and by the Catena Pharmacies, sponsors of all events within the “Catena pentru Arta” (“Catena for Art”) programme.
