Clear blue sky IV Painting

Roxana Ajder’s constant preoccupation with depictions of femininity is based on her intention to reveal fundamental aspects of human experience, aiming at exploring the way in which the male - female complementary oppositions interact. Throughout time and history, gender relationships shaped the existence of men and women and conditioned artistic creations. These concepts have often been problematic for our society because cultural differences in masculine and feminine types often mirror contrasting values. The visual sources that frequently form the basis for her works are photographs of people, mostly women, interested in social nudity or naturism. The emphasis on freedom from the constraints and taboos of civilization is achieved by placing the characters in an undefined space or in a natural setting (beaches, forests, swimming pools). These images combine details from online sources, magazine clippings or personal photo archive, and act as an intermediary tool between reality and painting. Also, the technique used is intended to achieve a monotype effect, characterized by the expressiveness of contours and brush strokes. Through the vibrant chromatics and spontaneous appearance of forms, her works create a connection between colors and the outer shape of a body, aiming to reveal the inner emotional truth of people and their experiences. Among artists who approached similar themes and who had an impact on her artistic development are: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Paul Gauguin for their use of flat areas of unmixed, vivid, non-naturalistic color and simplified forms, Marlene Dumas for her gestural fluidity of painted marks, and Balthus for his classical composing of figures and stiff postures. The latent eroticism of these pictures is highlighted by an almost monochrome yet dynamic background where cerulean blue, purple, and green are the dominant colors conveying the chromatic glow of nature. By contrast, the attributes of femininity - mouth, cheeks, nipples - entice the viewer with their bright red. Moreover, the roundness of the female body - hips, breasts, and womb – is supposed to be the focal point of these images alluding to a positive desire for regeneration and renewal (curves in general when used in shapes tend to embody femininity). Thus, liberated from the urban throng, the women and men that populate Roxana’s paintings live their lives as modern primitives.