'cues² and macroskins': a duo exhibition by Carmen Fodoreanu and C. Fodoreanu

The Cornel/Henry Art is pleased to present ‘cues² and macroskins’ a duo exhibition combining painting, installation art and photography to create a meditation space, by painter Carmen Fodoreanu and lens-based artist C. Fodoreanu.

Carmen Fodoreanu, MFA from Claremont Graduate University, is the recipient of numerous awards, including CSUSB President's Purchase Award, the California Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition, the Robert Bryant Preston Scholarship, and the CC Patrons of the Arts Scholarship. She has had numerous solo and group shows in the US and Europe, and her work can be found in private collections throughout the US. This will be her introductory exhibition to San Diego, CA.

She tells us: ‘thought has been defined as ‘an idea or opinion produced by thinking, or occurring suddenly in the mind.’ Some say that thoughts are units of energy while others consider them pure vibration. For something so vaguely defined, it seats at the base of all human experience and reality. Experts say that the human mind processes an average of about two thousand thoughts per hour. These thoughts are mostly unprovoked, without prediction. What we decide to keep thinking about is a matter of choice. We can ruminate about the good, the beautiful, the peaceful, the positive; or everything else opposite. The decision is fundamentally ours; and since our actions follow our thoughts, we become what we think.’

For this exhibition she has been painstakingly hand-painting two thousand cubes during the last year, with the aim of representing two thousand thoughts that have crossed her mind in one hour time. This work, placed in the middle of the gallery, explores the idea of thought processing, and covertly suggests the ability to selectively preserve what is flowing through a quantum of possibilities. She is translating an hour of her stream of thoughts into multiple visual objects, namely two thousand small painted cubes hanging from the ceiling at the head level. Each of these abstract representations requires a singular, focused exercise of the mind, and intrinsically engaging personal self-awareness. The painted cubes are clues into her mind, visual floating square cues (cues².) By compiling a unique selection of only beautiful, positive, peaceful thoughts, she is exercising a fundamental freedom of choice, and becoming what she thinks. The complementary paintings on the side walls are rendered on large heavily textured, curved surfaces and represent the abstract imagery of the high-velocity thought-processing patterns, that are, at times, mesmerizing in their fast sequencing. The visual effect created by the smudge like brush strokes is one of continuity or stream flow. It is as if thoughts would embrace or surround one in a circular motion that keeps on spinning around its precisely determined axis forming a vortex-like sensation.

C. Fodoreanu, MD from Harvard Medical School, was born into a family with a long tradition of icon painting, and started painting from early ages. He received his first camera as a young boy and ever since then he has been using light and time to paint his photographs. His work touches on human condition, the fleeting time, divine intervention, the fragility of life, personal boundaries, play and intimacy. These themes are a consequence of his educational background with degrees in philosophy and medicine. He is the author of a few poetry books, and his photography has been featured in several solo shows, which include the Harvard Arts First, and the Cornel/Henry Art. His projects have participated in selected photography festivals and publications, including Palm Springs Photo Festival, Medium Photo Festival, the Harvard Medical School literary magazine Third Space, and The Human Condition of UCSD School of Medicine. C. Fodoreanu has been selected by the Art San Diego 2019 as one of the four Local Talent art visionaries, and chosen by the show judges as the 2019 Award Winner. His work can be found in private collections throughout the US and Europe.

His ‘macroskins’ series presented here takes the viewer into an unexpected journey on the surface of the human body and beyond, from the more visible parts to the less so. This project started while looking for an answer about what is intimacy: ‘It is the closeness that makes one feel connected to another, or there is actually a space that two souls temporarily occupy together? Is this intimacy tangible or ethereal? Is it visual or unseeable?’ His shots are made very close to one’s body, using macro lenses, creating the illusion of almost peering through the skin, looking for something hidden, almost reaching a cellular level. Hair follicles become tall as trees, skin creases become valleys of light and shadows. One is lost on hard to identify locations, and there is a powerful feeling of breaching a pervasive modesty. The viewer is transgressed into an universe too crude to watch, too unfamiliar not to peek at. His shots of the human body create a space of almost unreal topography, a forbidden land that no one has journeyed on before. As one grows into his own body, one discovers it, doubts it, tests it, at times denies it, only in the end to unconditionally accept it for all what it is. And as the love grows towards the beholder, there is a window that opens towards the other. This exploration of the human body attains, as such, a deeper level of self-understanding, and contemplates one’s position in society. Printed on small format, his photographs create an intimate illusion ready to trap anyone’s eyes.

Together, ‘cues² and macroskins,’ are complimenting each other in deciphering the artists journey to self-discovery. While one is reaching deep into her mind, the other is searching the surface of a body for clues of deeper understanding. While one translates thoughts into visual objects, the other provokes thoughts from visual stimuli. The decorum that these two artists create in the gallery leads us to ponder about the relationship between thoughts and visuals, body and mind, real and unreal. We invite you to journey through this meditation space and renew. 

Opening Reception and Artists Talk: Feb 7 at 7:00 pm.