Mihaela Savu

ARTIST STATEMENT
I was a physician and an immigrant before I was a full-time artist. These are attributes that shape my story, and I proudly carry with me for this lifetime. They are the source of inspiration and the engine at the heart of my art.

Leaving behind my natal country, my family and friends imbue my creations with melancholy and nostalgia. Romanian Spirit is unique due to its turmoiled history of two millennia of oppression and perennial revival, defeat, and re-birth. It is a fatalistic view married to an immortal zest for life. Places and people from another time and continent populate my work. While I re-animate them, I create a respite and meditation space, a shrine to my other life, and my tribe.

I have worked with patients since the 1980s. I witnessed the border between life and death, the newborn's vigor, the comatose's lethargy, the new parent's excitement, and the widowed sorrow. This sweet burden requires a balancing act. I use the creative process to dissect the soul's journey, deconstruct emotional events, and tap into a higher reality with which Romanian Spirit directly connects.

Wanderers have imaginary roots; their home is a timeless realm, a mythical stretch between estranged and familiar...

EDUCATION IN THE ARTS

2013Masters of Fine Arts, Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland College of Art, Baltimore, MD

2010 Bachelor of Fine Arts, major in Sculpture, Summa Cum Laude, Arkansas State University

2007 Art History and Fashion Design, Florence University of the Arts, Florence, Italy

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2019 Solo Show at Governor’s Mansion, Little Rock, AR 2018 Where Am I From?, Adams-Vines Gallery, Northeastern College
2017girl-friends,BradburyArtMuseum,Jonesboro,AR
2014 Les enfants qui s'aiment Artscape 2014, Baltimore, MD
2013 Ladder at Mount Royal, Artscape, Baltimore, MD
2012 Lost at Sea, Salobreña Mon Amour, Great White Wall, Gateway, Baltimore, MD
2012 Cutting Edges, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD
2010 The Ladder, site-specific solo installation, Mount Royal Station Building, MICA, Baltimore, MD
2010 US – The Armory Show, Armory, Jonesboro, AR

UP AND COMING

Solo Show, Art House Downtown Jonesboro, 2020, (postponed due to COVIT-19)

Stepping Out of Paradise, solo show, Dacia Gallery, New York, NY, July 2020 (postponed due to COVIT-19)

2020 Teeth, Hair and other Human Feelings, collaboration with Karla Keller

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2018

Black Out, juried show, “The Curious Case of Morning Talk”, Ashton Gallery, San Diego, CA.

64 ARTS National Juried Exhibition, “Against the Yellowed Wall”, Monmouth, IL.

TRAHCs 30th Annual Juried Exhibition, Honorary Mention, Texarkana, TX.

2016

Chasing Ghosts, juried show, Mid 50s One Early Afternoon, Verum Ultim...