The name of the exhibition MAYDAY has several meanings given by the ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD MAYDAY: Phonetic spelling of French m’aidez = help me. * zi de Mai – May Day * MayDay … MayDay … MayDay Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening threat primarily by sailors and airmen. The call is always given three times in a row to prevent it from being confused with a similar sounding phrase in noisy conditions and to distinguish a current call from a message about a Mayday call.

Iulia Toader’s “MayDay” exhibition, however, is not a cry for help, as it would lead us to believe due to its title, which signifies the distress signal sent by sailors “mayday” repeated 3 times, on the contrary, the exhibition, which was opened in May 2023, brings together works that show art as an escape and a remedy. Transforming your deepest emotions into images of art is a way to cope with a ruthless reality, or a way to embellish that same reality with unexpected layers of meaning. The artist Iulia Toader conceived this exhibition during a difficult period in her life and art was her ‘salvation’! 

The exhibition had its Vernissage in the beautiful afternoon of May 16, 2023 at the Mihai Eminescu Cultural Center in Bucharest, followed by a coffee presentation in the morning of May 22, 2023.

Then on a foggy November morning (November 17, 2023) at the new headquarters of the Renaissance Art Gallery in Pipera where the exhibition was moved from the Eminescu Cultural Center, there was a morning of stories with the artist Iulia Toader, who spoke to us how she came to paint her exhibition MAYDAY – Salvarea, where the title of the exhibition comes from and why she painted so many flowers, although until the summer of 2023 she refuses to consider flowers a “subject” of her paintings. We also gathered to celebrate the acquisition of the Doctor of Architecture title of arch. Iulia Toader, but also to listen in detail to the story of the work EFIGIA – made to order for the Domeniile Blaga vineyard that belongs to Oana Blaga and her husband.

WORKS AVAILABLE IN THE GALLERY

Exhibition “XeX LIBRIS”

Mihai is a conceptual artist who uses photography as meditation.

Trained as a chemical engineer but always an artist, explorer, and entrepreneur at heart, he began his creative journey experimenting with, developing and publishing short science fiction stories with one of the oldest science fiction clubs in Romania—“String”-. 

Then, as a post-revolutionary Romania opened to the world, he worked and helped build and develop advertising and public relations campaigns for some of the country’s first international publishing agencies. 

Ever hungry for adventure, he later spent time exploring the world as a lone backpacker before bringing his passion for creative problem solving to a career in the financial industry, completing an EMBA and leading large teams as a Retail Risk Director for two major international banks. Here, he introduced his “Friday Fun” concept to the corporate environment, organizing more than 50 events aimed at bringing creative expression and play to places that traditionally lack it. 

His photographic encounters are spontaneous—the majority occur during short early morning or late evening walks in Bucharest with Busy, his happy-go-lucky Jack Russel Terrier.

6 years ago, inspired by a course he took with New Age Photography, he started to study first through observation and then through his photographs, the mute flight of Bucharest’s wild city birds. This exploration and mindful observation of birds among the city lights led him to his Phoenix nest, a space where his imagination and his creative vision merged into one reality—the smoking ashes of a burned-down nightclub. Here, on scorched earth and among twisted metal, he found new meaning to the freedom he sought among the birds. This space and this moment yielded the manifest photo story “XeX Libris” (2022), an ode to Baudelaire’s “Fleurs du Mal”, Bukowski’s “Love for $17.50” and Bradbury’s“Fahrenheit 451”.

“I’m not a photographer, nor an artist”.

I just …AM. 

I am present, conscious in the moment that floods my subconscious with the very existence of everything! 

I share with the viewer moments captured in daily life and hope they find within them “ A reset button” that will remove them from the urban, corporate, family cliches that we are surrounded by daily and will give them  space to grow anew.”

Exhibition “The Kingdom of the Turtles” presented on line on Artsy during COVID pandemic

AVAILABLE ART FOR SALE from this exhibition and others

Hellene Diana Neagu graduated N. Tonitza Art Highschool, Bucharest in 1994 at the Fashion Design Department & Decorative Arts Faculty at Scenography Department of  N. Grigorescu Art Academy, Bucharest in 1999. She created costumes and sets and was production designer first assistant for several theatre plays, movies, advertisements and she took part in symposiums and residencies in the country and abroad. Life styles magazines such as Tabu, Ideal Decor, Luxury House, Arhitext, Time Out, Big City Life, Diplomat Club, L’Accueil Francais et Francophone de Bucarest, hosted articles about her art. She exhibited abroad, in Bucharest and in the country at museums and modern art galleries and received awards and was nominated for sculpture, scenography and costumes design. Her artworks are now in private and public collections around the world. 

  “My art begins always with the concept.                                                                                                                                                                        

I’m mainly working with copper and brass. Since I graduated Art Academy in Bucharest I continuously look forward to express, in an abstract manner, the concept of the human being in the state of equilibrium and eternal peace. Therefore, I use the symbol of the circle inscribed in the square: symbol of the spiritual (the circle) manifesting in the matter (the square).

I encoded these symbols, which are present in almost all my artworks, under the name of “The Turtle”.  In the Asian cultures, Turtle symbolizes the wisdom, longevity, patience, reconciliation with oneself and I believe that those qualities can be achieved by humans, once they strike a balance between material and spiritual.                                                                                                                                                                                     

The copper and brass artworks are composed from different measures pieces of these metals, treated individually, therefore they are 95% manually labored. The close-up pictures of the artworks show well how I’m working the brass and the copper. So, every single piece individually is drawn, cut and hammered, then, in several layers, I’m applying patin and in the end, for protection, I’m treating the entire composition with a natural varnish. I’m doing also the rings by hand, so it remains only the holes made by electrical drilling machine. Of course, the whole working method is much more complex than I explained, but in goal to discover more about the story of “The Kingdom of the Turtles”, you are welcome to meet me and my art at HDNaRT STUD/O and also now as an Artist represented by RENAISSANCE Art Gallery website and the international art website Artsy and I look forward for you to join me in personal or group exhibitions, or to accompany me in my artistic approach.                                                                                                                

My works are collected by collectors and art lovers, museums and art galleries and are part of private collections from Romania, Italy, Greece, Germany, Norway, Canada, Spain, Slovenia, U.S.A., France, The Basque Country, Republic of Moldova and Belgium, and in public collections in Czech Republic | Smetana Sculpture Park – Prostějov and Sculpture Park St. Josepf  Hořice, in Slovenia | Forma Viva International Sculpture Park – Statenberg Palace| 2008 | 2013 and in Romania, in Otetelişanu Mansion | 2015, Veroniki Art Gallery| 2009 | 2010, Contemporary Art Gallery Galateca | 2006 | 2007 | Central Library Carol I from Bucharest and from the Collection of the Contemporary Art Museum Târgovişte | 2012 | 2013, Collection of the Contemporary Art Gallery Renaissance | 2019.                                                                             

I consider art collectors, art lovers, collaborators and art galleries as my partners in my art developing and continuity.” says   HELLENE DIANA NEAGU || sculptor & scenographer