Artist Biography
Ioana Tămaş was born in 1988, in Cluj in Romania. It was soon discovered by her teachers at school, that she was very passionate about drawing and it was suggested she should attend art school. She started her study in the Art College in the same city, age fourteen. In the first year, when she tried out the available departments, she chose to specialise in ceramics. After college she studied at the University of Art and Design, Cluj, where she received her Bachelors and Master's Degrees in ceramics. During her study she undertook two internships abroad, one in Belgium, Liege and one in Turkey, Eskisehir. This helped her broaden her perspective in art and secured her future as an artist. She discovered that her personal experiences have an interesting influence on her work. When she graduated from the University of Arts, Cluj, she moved to The Netherlands. There, she found a very good studio where she could work and develop her skills as an artist and where she found her mentor for the following years.
Artist Statement
My work is mostly figurative with an inclination towards the abstract. Combining the figurative with the abstract alludes to a confusion between reality and illusion. It represents my personal research into human behaviour and psychology. It's a reflection on the way I see and understand people and I research into body and mind. I mostly create sculptures from clay, but in the last years I began to use more diverse materials like paper, textile, polyester and latex. My development as an artist is based on spontaneity. I do not have a certain path to follow and my work is very much influenced by day-to-day life and can suddenly appear as a vision which I then try to reinterpret as figurative / abstract shapes. I research and experiment with new techniques and materials to have more variety and expression in my work. I search mainly to understand the techniques, but then I find a personal approach in applying them. One of my frequently used techniques is ceramic lithography. With this technique I've better developed my own style, together with the merging of figurative and abstract shapes in clay. I don't use much glaze in my work, only very subtly to accentuate certain details.
I use my work to express myself, to communicate and bring awareness to certain subjects. I feel satisfied when my work is understood or interpreted in a way that awakens emotions for the viewer, even though they may differ from my own concept or understanding.
