Artist Profile: Irina Negulescu

By Will Bowen | SD Downtown News

“Daca stii sa pritezi corpul femeisc, stii sa pictezi orice,” is Romanian for, “If you know how to paint the woman’s figure, you can paint anything.”

This saying has a been a guiding light for Romanian-American artist Irina Negulescu, who paints large images of beautiful women, often swimming in water, using oversized brushes and a palette knife.

Negulescu can often be found working, hidden away behind a large makeshift screen of a king-sized baby blue bed sheet, which divides the Coalesce Gallery in Little Italy North, that she shares with Joseph Bedford, a woodworker who makes creative furniture.

“In Romania, I studied the female figure. The communist dictator at the time, Nicolae Ceausescu, was trying to save electricity, so it was off part of the day. It was so cold without electricity that the female nude models refused to pose for our art classes. So we students had to pose for ourselves, but with our clothes on. Once we got into a position our teacher would tell us, ‘Now undress the model with your eyes.’”

Negulescu is best known for her murals and large portraits of women, and in her most recent series, as underwater gypsies.

“My portraits of women are a collage of the body parts of many people. I may use my sister’s body, my neck, and a friend’s hand. But in a way, all my paintings of women might be thought of as self-portraits.”

Negulescu grew up in the Romanian city of Constanta, which is a port and Navy town on the Black Sea. She lived just a stone’s throw from the water.

“We had a hard life under communism and my family life was equally difficult because my real father deserted us, my mother was an alcoholic, and my stepfather was a violent tyrant. I used to dream that Prince Charming would come and save me from the witch and the evil stepfather. Although I longed to be saved, I ended up taking care of everybody else.”

Negulescu’s mother died young, so she was thrown into the role of caretaker for herself and her two younger sisters. She took care of them in Romania, and then later helped them come to America, where they both became registered nurses.

To escape the oppression of poverty and hardship in Constanta, Negulescu would often head to the shore and escape into the sea.

“We have lots of gypsies in Romania, who are called ‘Roma.’ I never really liked them because they teach their children to steal, but the gypsy children taught me to be tough and brave. They taught me to swim and to dive from the rocks into the Black Sea. They helped me to survive.

“Water was very important to me as a child and it is important in my new ‘Women in the Water’ series of paintings. Water was my escape—my freedom. And I still love it. I like to ride my bicycle from the gallery here in Little Italy down to the bayfront near the Star of India and just stare into the water. It has such a calming effect on me.”

Even as a little girl, Negulescu loved to draw. Since her family was poor, she did not have the luxury of drawing materials, so she would draw in the margins of books or crawl under a table and scratch out figures on the underside.

“When I was 16, I went to art school at The Popular Institute of Art in Constanta. After that, I got a job in the data entry field during the week and did puppet shows on the weekends.

“I ended up falling in love with and marrying a Romanian sailor. He took me with him to Spain, where he has granted political asylum. Then we were sponsored and came to America. I went back to art school and received an AA in art from Mesa College and then a BA from San Diego State University.

Growing up in an Eastern Bloc country affects your perception of life. It makes you tough and wise. You have to be to survive. But you become more of a perfectionist. You are never really satisfied with yourself or what you do.”

“People say I paint beautiful things but frequently I have dark dreams — nightmares about the past. I dream I am drowning—some people say my ‘Women in the Water’ series– my water gypsies– are drowning, but I think they are happy to be in the water.

“Besides painting women and murals, I like to paint children. I also painted the collapsed buildings of the World Trade Center in New York. I had a ticket to go there on 9/11, but all flights were cancelled that day. The painting of ground zero I made is hanging in a fire station in New York now. My cousin, who was a fireman at the disaster scene, is in the painting.”

You can experience Negulescu’s water gypsy series in person, as well as get a look at her other work at Coalesce Gallery, located at 2360 India St. in Little Italy. She also invites you to come by on the first Friday of the month (June 1^{S t}) during Kettner Nights, where she hosts a reception of food and wine.

“Hundreds of people are walking around looking at art that night. It’s an inspiring place to be,” she said.  For more information, check out her website at www.negulescu.com.