Fantastyfrolia

Using composition rules specific to the Cartoon Glam movement, in which the human figure dominates the surface of representation, Ioana Băltan creates, through pictorial means, a guide to revisiting the memory of childhood, in the economy of which she first isolates elements with a symbolic charge – a unicorn, a lollipop, a bunny – then organizes them into visual ecosystems governed by the laws of hyper-feminine aesthetics.

Ioana’s imaginary map thus follows the reverse logic marking the construction of the formation and education novel – the Bildungsroman – whether literary or visual. If, in the Bildungsroman, the main character discovers the unknown and learns to manage the surrounding reality by developing new skills, while following a linear narrative path with a beginning and an ending, in Ioana Băltan’s series, he rediscovers the once-known-now-forgotten by being confronted with childhood sequences subject to the non-logic of emotional memory.

The linearity of the narrative is thus pulverized into slivers of memories randomly developed on large surfaces, rendered in oil on canvas. The viewer is served slices of the artist’s emotional archives, the archives of that illo tempore perfectly preserved beneath the flesh of the plastic dolls in the foreground. Ioana Băltan increases the light of her compositions by juxtaposing desaturated and saturated tones. Neapolitan yellow, strontium yellow or thalo crimson pinks gain a high value index in the company of cobalt blue, magenta violet and China green. The rhythm of surfaces worked in ultra-saturated orange tones with burnt shadows and green tones transforms some compositions from static-representational to dynamic-narrative, portraying to viewers doll-like characters in motion. Unexpectedly, the plastic fairies seem to move, thanks to the chromatic associations expressed by the artist. The characters’ broad gestures, the exaltation of flesh through the layering of glaze and the artist’s choice of the generic portrait with exaggerated facial features are all typical manifestations of the dominant Cartoon Glam gene altered by the icon-signs of hyper-feminine aesthetics.

A Barbie world conquering the fantasy realms of childhood emerges in shots that look like Instagram selfies. The artist’s careful attention to rendering hair volume by applying thin, elongated and calm brush strokes, as well as the manner in which the garments are treated in subtly textured pastel tones, amplify the femininity of the characters depicted. All the canvases thus become feminine, gaining the quality of frames that are witnesses to the defiance of heteronormative norms and transforming the paintings into a series of confessions of the auctorial ego. Ioana Băltan’s messages go beyond the aestheticization of dolls taking selfies while eating cakes, wearing make-up or riding fluffy unicorns in a flying gallop, and aim at exposing the excessive fetishization of female bodies, a fetishization that starts in early childhood and drives a whole cluster of consumer goods industries, be they toys, pastries, cosmetics or Instagram reels.

Text written by Gilda Ghinoiu, curator