Anca Vintilă Dragu: Selected works, 2019-2025
Fluid Boundaries, 2025
Exhibition at Galateea Contemporary Art, Bucharest, 2025
As I looked at Anca Vintilă Dragu’s works, I searched for the one word that might define her as an artist, as a woman. But I couldn’t stop at just one. Instead, I found a string of words that could go on endlessly: calm, serenity, spirituality, openness, beauty, normality.
Anca is one of those artists who, even if you don’t know her personally, reveals herself completely, without any mask, through her ceramics. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone so direct, so beautifully close and intertwined with their own works.
In these restless times, we gently step into the artist’s quiet, calm sanctuary, where she reveals to us a ritual of return, return to personal space, to the stillness of a gravitational moment, to that state of grace she describes as rare and precious, when everything aligns and the mind begins to float.
A visit to her creative universe immerses us in this world of silence. We are drawn to approach her pieces gently, to follow them with our eyes—from figurative forms to metaphorical ones that briefly transport us to the vastness of the sea. And there, through light, sound, and scent, we are held in a moment of introspection. Anca’s searches, her emotions and questions, become our own.
Text by Anca Boeriu, PhD Lecturer at the National University of Arts, Bucharest
The Wave, 2024
Works created at Blanc de Chine art residency, Dehua, China
My fascination for their endless, captivating movements, with lines, curves, reflections of light, their breakage at the shore inspires me always. The waves are like life moments, each is different, unexpected and unique. You can never hold them still, they come one after another, they never stop, they wash your soul, your memories.
Metamorphosis / The cry of nature, 2024
Earth, water, beings are all linked together in an inseparable circle. We all come from the same melting pot of nature that we should nurture and fight for. But the speechless living creatures, part of our bio and ecosystem, are helpless.
The claw, adorned in a man’s shirt, symbolizes the metamorphosis of a living creature into a human. It is a testament to the resilience and determination of nature, using every means other than speech to communicate its plea for survival and care.
The work serves as a reminder that humans and nature are intertwined, and our intelligence should guide us to foresee and nurture the future of our planet. My work is symbolic and narrative at the same time, the raising claw of a water creature stands for life, continuity and happiness.
My neighbour, 2020
My works are narrative, they tell stories. The series of helmets aims to create a bridge between my ancestors, the Geto-Dacians who wore these ceremonial gold or silver helmets and one of my latest themes: our addiction to technology. The helmet worn by the warrior kings symbolized the power conferred on them by the supreme Deity. My helmet suggests that Man is a God in this humanist era, through the infinite power provided by unlimited access to information and technology.
Anthropo-ciberneticus, 2019
An expression of the new paradigm of human attitude in public under the influence of technology. The characters are an alter ego of the contemporary men, archetypes of posture and attitude, recent mass behaviors, striking. Information flows also become vital flows of the technological man, information is a need, a new source of energy. This concept made me ask questions about the future, about the new human nature and I tried to answer them with a small dose of humor.
Captions
- Pearl Wave, 2024, translucent porcelain 1300ᵒC, 43 x 38 x 8 cm. Photo by Zheng Yongji
Whale Wave, 2024, translucent porcelain 1300ᵒC, 40 x 37 x 6,5 cm. Photo by Zheng Yongji
Engraved Wave, 2024, translucent porcelain 1300ᵒC, 40 x 37 x 6,5 cm. Photo by Zheng Yongji
Lines Wave, 2024, translucent porcelain 1300ᵒC, 40 x 38 x 6,5 cm. Photo by Zheng Yongji - Metamorphosis 1, 2024, paper porcelain, glazes, electric firing 1240ᵒC, Honorable mention at the 2024 Manises Biennial, Spain
Metamorphosis 2, 2024, porcelain, glazes, electric firing 1240ᵒC
Metamorphosis 3, 2024, colored stoneware, resin, electric firing 1240﮿ᵒC - My Neighbour pink, 2020, stoneware, glazes, luster, hand built, 1200ᵒC, 30×24 cm
My Neighbour black, 2020, stoneware, gold leaf & gold luster, hand built, 1200ᵒC, 30×24 cm
My Neighbour color, 2020, porcelain, pigments, slip casting, ceramic collage 1200ᵒC, 30×24 cm
My Neighbour white, 2020, porcelain, pigments, slip casting, ceramic collage 1200ᵒC, 30×24 cm - 3 characters (#Anthropo-ciberneticus), 2019, porcelain, 1200°C, 33 x 26 x 16 cm
Pink on Scooter (#Anthropo-ciberneticus), 2019, porcelain, glazes, 1250°C, 28 x 26 x 16 cm
The Thinker (#Anthropo-ciberneticus), 2019, porcelain, glazes, 1250°C, 28 x 26 x 12 cm
Anthropo-ciberneticus exhibition at Galateea Contemporary Art, Bucharest, 2019
