Avalon is a mystical place, the island of apples (symbols of perfection and eternity) where miracles happen and deadly wounds are healed. A place of magic, located somewhere between this and the other world. A Utopia. Paradise.

For this series, I have partly mounted several images digitally, partly placed objects onto the image and photographed the ensemble, and partly I combined both montage techniques. The analog/real and the digital/virtual worlds, the tangible and the intangible, meet. Avalon is ever-present and ever-illusive, right here and unfathomably far away.

Tiny particles of dust on some of the photos, small signs of imperfection, appear to be stars in the sky when looked at from a distance.

The circular shapes - white pearl and blue marble - are like different aspects of an apple´s being.

Letters, syllables of exclamation, are like a secret code, a secret language.

A blue gown, a still-life of shoes, red piece of clothing and a book, pieces of wood, arranged like a group of people, maybe a couple could be traces of humans? Angels? Fairies?

The sun rises over a peaceful sea - or does the sun set?

Avalon - This Is Paradise

MULTIPLYING is meant to be projected onto the back of a rectangular blue space. Single human beings are seen moving in cave-like cells. The cells are organized in groups of 2x3. These groups, in turn, are also grouped into units of 2x3, making up an artificial, very confined living space. The people within look as if they might be cloned, performing the same movements in an infinite loop. The sound of a copy machine is heard.

This Doina began as an image of a thought that spreads through an organism, being repeated in every cell of a single person´s body but also in every single person of a certain group or community. Just like in Plato´s allegory of the cave, it is a very limited (and limiting) thought that is based on a particular assumption and is repeated over and over again, without ever changing or being questioned.

How much interest is there in critical reflection? Is it not much easier to stay in a „cell”, doing what has „always” been done, doing what “everybody” does, maybe feeling limited but safe? Isn´t this the source of the banality of evil: The need to fit in, the need to belong? The coziness of the unquestioned daily grind that pretends to be security?

The Doina is a new artistic form I have created. It is a synthesis of performance and visual art. Doinas are performative miniatures that allow a universal reading of a personal experience. They might be compared to monologues in theater or arias in opera. As a dancer and choreographer, I use the body as a means of expression. As a video artist, I record the movement of the body and edit the recorded sequences to create "paintings" that consist of movement. Doing so, I dive into the blurred space of the emotional and improvised and strive to visualize the inner trembling, the insecurities, the hidden aspects of human existence.

Multiplying

Social distancing is the call of the day. It fragments and deconstructs our social lives, and as connections fall apart on one level, they re-assemble on another level, in another way. 
The images are digital photomontages. For each one, I took a close-up photo of a piece of architecture here in Berlin, then used it three times, fragmenting it, layering it on top of the other two.

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Gabriela Dumitrescu

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