Irina Ojovan, born in 1988 in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, is a painter and sculptor whose work navigates the intricate relationship between materiality, external form, and the latent meanings embedded within these forms. Her artistic practice is deeply influenced by her personal and familial history, particularly reflected in her series Inherited Profiles, a title that references tools designed for stucco elements by her father, an architect. By incorporating these tools into her creative process, Ojovan bridges her personal heritage with contemporary artistic exploration, thus synthesizing memories across temporal boundaries. These inherited profiles serve not only as formal elements in her work but also as metaphors for biography, encapsulating the artist's emotional and experiential landscape.
On a formal level, Ojovan's use of profiles, as both the outline of shapes and figures, becomes a mechanism through which she investigates the tension between form and meaning. This tension is further heightened by her focus on abstraction, where she reduces her compositions to geometric surfaces. These surfaces, characterized by their interplay of color and texture, evoke emotional and associative spaces that extend beyond mere formal abstraction. Her works engage deeply with the architectural spaces they inhabit, often exploring the interplay between the visible and the invisible, between presence and absence, and the boundaries of what can be represented versus what remains elusive or ineffable.
Ojovan's educational background is equally notable. Between 2009 and 2018, she pursued studies at prestigious institutions such as the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, Rome, and Munich. There, she trained under renowned professors including Franco Fanelli, Giuseppe Modica, Günther Förg, Matthias Dornfeld, and Gregor Hildebrandt. Her formative years culminated in 2018 when she completed her studies as a master student under Gregor Hildebrandt, further honing her distinctive artistic voice.
Ojovan's artistic contributions have been recognized internationally. In 2019, she completed the Winsor & Newton residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, a prestigious platform where she also participated in the exhibition COME CLOSE & STEP BACK, curated by Jurriaan Benschop in collaboration with Pia Krajewski. In 2020, her artistic excellence was further acknowledged with the Bavarian Art Prize for Visual Arts, leading to an exhibition at the Galerie der Künstler in Munich in early 2021.
Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Europe and the United States, including but not limited to: Mgk, Otterndorf (2024); Stadtgalerie Kiel, Kiel (2024); Brücke Museum, Berlin (2022); Skulpturenmuseum Marl, Marl (2022); Villa Schöningen, Potsdam (2022); NRW-Forum/Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2021); LOOCK, Berlin (2021, 2022, 2024); COSAR, Düsseldorf (2020, 2022, 2023); and The Hole, New York (2020). Ojovan currently resides and works in Düsseldorf, Germany, continuing to expand her artistic exploration at the intersection of memory, form, and architecture.