Art Fridays: Studio Conversations with Ioan Iacob

Ioan Iacob (b. 1954), a native of Sibiu in Transylvania who now calls Düsseldorf (Germany) his home, is one of the most appreciated Romanian artists living abroad. He is a graduate of  Düsseldorf’s Academy of Fine Arts where he studied with Professor Gothard Graubner, one of the greatest abstract colorists of recent times. His works are found in private collections in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Bruxelles and his solo exhibitions could be seen in prestigious galleries in Germany, Belgium, France, United States, Israel, and Romania.

Don’t miss the premiere on our Facebook, IGTV and YouTube on July 2 at 2 p.m. New York & Toronto time / 11 a.m. Los Angeles & Vancouver time / 9 p.m. Bucharest time. Watch also on our website and other social media accounts anytime later.

Ioan Iacob’s paintings, either portraits, still life or landscapes, betray a classical approach yet his subjects are rather a pretext to lay the paint on the canvas in order to make it pulsate as sensitive matter. The artist builds layers of paint until the motive is dimmed - and then it can take months or even years until the work gets finished.

On his most recent exhibition, entitled “Vademecum” and shown at Galeriile Carol in Bucharest (April 27 – May 31, 2021), the artist re-interpreted, in a postmodernist manner, the paintings of Diego Velázquez as a subtle invitation to revisit the Baroque atmosphere of the great Spanish master and rediscover costumes typical to the 17th century.

For Iacob, the STUDIO represents not only the place where his works are brought to life but also a commitment to draw the attention to the constituent elements of the paint of which they are made: ground, texture, color, and brush stroke.