Adelina Ivan
Adelina Ivan
Biography
Adelina Ivan, (she/her) visual artist, (b. 1971, Bucharest) of Romanian ethnical background, lives in Romania. She works at the crossroads of textile art and painting, using an abstract visual language with open and fluid geometries, where textile forms merge with the painted background, treating textile structures as both visual and metaphorical representations of contemporary complexity, where textile form is no longer a vehicle of representation but a tool of construction – one that privileges interconnection, repetition, and transformation over depiction. BA and MA in Art & Design within the National University of Arts Bucharest and a PhD in Visual Arts at the same University, with the thesis: Fluid Structures and Spaces of Resistance in Soft Sculpture.
Artistic disciplines:
Process
Based on experimenting and intuition, she follows a process of research and a series of observations including abstract incomplete or unfinished forms, associated with the capacity of textile to adapt and transform the object and space, as well as to absorb the painted surface as an adherent medium. Through reduction and layering, folding and repetition, the textile fragments – ubiquitous objects in intimate proximity to bodies and domestic spaces – function as carriers of both personal and collective narrative. She works with a wide variety of fabrics and textiles, investigating their ability to change: depending on its structure, textile material behaves differently and can be shaped in very different ways; light and shadow also become visible on the surface, determined by the permeability and fragility of the material. She incorporates pieces of textile into painting, using the painted surface as an adherent medium for textile. The superimposed layers give rise to new, unique shapes and textures, expanding the classical concept of painting or the materiality of sculpture.
Notable themes
Recurring themes in Adelina Ivan's practice include gender, identity, contemporary complexity and conventionalism, investigating the tension between the inherent qualities of geometry and the fluid nature of textiles, and how this tension can be used to challenge hierarchies, normativity and stability.
Works in collections and public recognition
- exhibited nationally and internationally, at biennales, museums, art galleries.
- * works in public institutions collections, art museums collections and private collections.
A selection of works are included in the Romanian National Museum of Contemporary Art Collection.
Works in private collections in Romania, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, UK.
Selected exhibitions
1.Selected solo exhibitions
- 2025 - solo exhibition, Pale Geometries – Schugar Rotariu Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany[1]
- 2024 - solo exhibition, Different items – Cabinet44, Bucharest, Romania
- 2022 - solo exhibition, Exercises of arranging and rearranging– ICR Venice, Italy
- 2022 - solo exhibition, Stretched / Relaxed – Cabinet44, Bucharest, Romania
- 2020 - solo exhibition, A line that waves and winds – Grundarfjörður, Iceland
- 2019 - solo exhibition, The Infinite Convergence, Project Space -‐ Spinnerei, Leipzig, Germany
- 2018 - solo exhibition, To Restore, Anca Poterasu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania[2]
- 2017 - solo exhibition, The color of geometry, Jean-‐Claude Maier, Frankfurt, Germany
- 2017 - solo exhibition, Frugalitas Severitas Fidelis / tranzit.ro, Bucharest, Romania
- 2016 - solo exhibition, Time Delusion, Kube Musette, Bucharest, Romania
- 2016 - solo exhibition, Atena adjusting her sandal, ODD/Atelier35, Bucharest, Romania
2.Selected group exhibitions
- 2025 - group exhibition, Listening to the Earth Beyond Silence, Kunsthalle Seinäjoki, Finland
- 2025 - group exhibition, Skin Territories, Scânteia Project, Atelierele Scânteia, Bucharest
- 2024 - group exhibition, Soils – Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
- 2024 - group exhibition, In our immediate environment, Plastic Contemporary, Cluj, Romania
- 2023 - group exhibition, Puls 22 – Textile Layers, MNAC Collection, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, Romania
- 2022 - group exhibition, The Real Line, E-‐WERK Luckenwalde, Berlin, Germany
- 2022 - group exhibition, L'année dernière à Malmaison, SAC/Bucharest, Romania
- 2021 - group exhibition, Salon Video, Sandwich, Bucharest, Romania
- 2021 - group exhibition, Crimes are abolished. Only passions remain, tranzit.ro, Bucharest, Romania[3]
- 2021 - group exhibition, Arts Sports Club, MARE Museum, Bucharest, Romania
- 2020 - group exhibition, Seeing History – 1947-‐2007, MNAC Collection, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, Romania
- 2020 - group exhibition, In the midst of the worst, the best of times, SUMO 2020, Litost Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
- 2020 - group exhibition, Wounded Identity, Anca Poterașu Gallery, Bucharest, Romania
- 2020 - group exhibition, A Room of One’s Own, NADA NY Gallery Open, CTG Harlem, NY
- 2019 - group exhibition, not everything means something, honey (vol.2), Anca Poterașu Gallery / Eigen+Art, Leipzig, Germany
3.Biennials, museum retrospectives, comprehensive retrospective exhibitions
NA
Artistic Residencies, Art Researches, Collaborations, Art Projects
- 2022 - Contextile Residency, Contemporary Textile Art Biennial, Guimarães, Portugal[4]
- 2020 - Artistic Research Residency: Artak350 Grundarfjörður Residency / SEE Grant, Grundarfjörður, Iceland[5]
- 2018 - Artistic Research Residency: Salzburg Residency, ERSTE Foundation Grant – Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Austria
Selected works
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Exhibition views
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Title, Year, Teh, Size - (c) Copyrights 2025
Publications
1.Published books
NA
2.Published articles in journals & magazines
NA
Curating activity (Artist as curator)
NA
Catalogues
NA
Press
- https://www.idea.ro/revista/en/article/YcdJqhEAACEA5H0p/under-ordinate
- https://revistaarta.ro/ro/virusarea-identitatii-in-era-corpului-docil-carantinat-fara-organe/
- https://curatorial.ro/arta/lucrarile-realizate-de-adelina-ivan-in-rezidenta-din-islanda-vor-fi-prezentate-publicului-din-bucuresti-saptamana-viitoare/
Gallery Representation
None.
For further commercial and non-commercial inquiries, feel free to contact NPK
Social Media Links
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adelina__ivan
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adelinaivan0
- Website: http://adelinaivan.ro/
Hashtags
(artistic practices, currents, techniques, themes - applicable hashtags for this artist)
abstract art, artist studio
conceptual art
dematerialization
geometric abstraction
identity critique, installation
neo-concrete art
painting, patriarchy, performative practices, poetry, [[processuality]
sculpture, site-specific installation, social criticism, structural feminism
textile art
video art
women
Compatible and inspirational artists:
(artist-mentioned reference list)
"Their practice is based on concepts related to fluidity, domesticity, fragility, forms of resistance, experimentation or geometric abstractions, overturning the traditional constraints between material, method and medium and using materials and techniques that challenge artistic and gender hierarchies, rigid or formal order."-artist note
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/DK9eCnpIjbx/?__d=1%3F%2F
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/events/anca-poterasu-gallery/adelina-ivan-solo-show/126833414729622/
- ↑ https://ro.tranzit.org/en/exhibition/0/2021-10-18/exhibition-adelina-ivan
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slUb9pM4Lhg
- ↑ https://www.aracartandresidency.com/ro/adelina-ivan-artak350-residency/
