Art in Conversation
with Doina Botez
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Doina Botez was born in Bucharest in 1951. She gained her art degree in 1975, with the "Ion Andreescu" grant achieved in 1974, at the "Nicolae Grigorescu" Institute in Bucharest.
She dedicates herself to book illustrations, especially for children, together with painting and graphics, and also becomes scenographer for the Romanian Cartoon Producers, Animafilm.
From 1974 she participates in collective graphic and engraving organised by the Order of Romanian Artists.
In 1984 she is granted a scholarship, in Italy, within the italo-romanian cultural agreement.
She manages to express, in her works, some of the tragic aspects of the dictatorship, up until a warning for the illustrations of a Romanian dissident poetess verses.
She lives and works in Rome since 1989, devoting herself exclusively to painting and graphics.
In January 1996, invited by the Romanian Government, on the occasion of the "Monumenta Romaniae Vaticana" exhibition, she paints an interpretation of the "Madonna Rumena", gift to His Holiness John Paul II.
DOINA BOTEZ
Painter | Romania
Artist Statement
In the year 2000 she carries out a monumental project, portraying Bacchanalia with characters and symbols typical of the Dionysian procession, fresco which ornates one of the cupolas of the ageing and refining cellars in Art Cellars of the wine producer Mastroberardino.
In 2009, for her solo exhibition 'Nosce te ipsum', in the Sala delle Colonne of Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, she receives the patronage of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Special Superintendence for the Historical, Artistic and Ethno-anthropological Heritage and for the Museums of the City of Rome.
In 2013 Skira Editore publishes the monographic album "Doina Botez, Il corpo dell'immagine, opere 1989 -2013" (Body of the image) curated by Flaminio Gualdoni.
In 2018 she receives the “100” medal for the Centenary of Romania's Unification, an award given by the Romanian Government to one hundred prominent personalities in the world.
In 2019 at the Palazzo Santa Chiara in Rome under the patronage of the Romanian Cultural Institute, the Embassy of Romania in Italy and the Academy of Romania in Rome, she holds a solo exhibition "Memories of a Recent Experience" with two distinct sections, both artistic interventions firmly disapproving of dictatorship and authoritarianism thirty years after the end of the Berlin Wall. The first section pays tribute to Eugène Ionesco and his theatre of the absurd. Imagining rhinocerontitis, for the work The rhinoceros, her paintings depict man’s surreal metamorphosis in which people are transformed to the point of giving in to authoritarian and totalitarian models. In her illustrations of a children’s poetry book Tales from my street by Ana Blandiana, 1988, (second section) she captures the purity of the fairytale to insert the signs of a firm and irreducible dissent, incorporating hidden and invasive figures that, in the image of animals, people and objects, photograph the oppressive threat of a totalitarian regime.
PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS
1978 Gallery Orizont, Bucharest
1980 Vrije Galerie, Utrecht
1983 Gallery Caminul Artei, Bucharest
1985 Romanian Academy of Rome, Rome
1986 Gallery “II Canovaccio”, Rome
1989 Gallery Caminul Artei, Bucharest
1990 Gallery La Seggiola, Marina di Camerota, Salerno
1992 Gallery Lombardi, Rome
Gallery L'Approdo, Avellino
1993 Galerie Du Simplon, Vevey
Gallery dei Greci, Rome
1994 Cloister of S. Francesco, Ravello
1995 La Rinascente - on invite - Rome
Embassy of Romania to the Holy See
1996 Palazzo dei Capitani, Ascoli Piceno
Galerie Wilhelm 94, Wülfrath
1998 Casa del Popolo, Council of Genazzano
1999 Gallery Borghese, Mentana
Gallery L’Approdo, Avellino
2000 Fresco of the cupolas, Art Cellars Mastroberardino, Atripalda
2001 Caruso Gallery, Milazzo
Galerie Zeitart, Wülfrath
2002 Palazzo Duchi di S. Stefano - Mazzullo Foundation, Taormina
2003 National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art,
Republic of San Marino
2006 Palazzo Rospigliosi, Zagarolo
2007 Arena Gallery, Reggio Calabria
2009 National Museum of Castel Sant'Angelo, Roma
2012 Mediterranea Gallery, Napoli
Spazio Gallery 120, Roma
2014 Romana Gallery, Bucarest
2015 Art Gallery on the Avenue, Philadelphia
2018 WEGIL Museum, Roma
2019 Palazzo Santa Chiara, Roma
2020 M.A.D. Gallery, Mantova
AWARDS
1979 Second prize at the "Humour in art" exhibition, Romania
1980, 1984 Trophy of the Young Reader assigned by the Bucharest Council
1981, 1984 Prize for the illustration of children's books given by the dal National Council of Pioneers, Bucharest
1982 Prize for the artistic realization of animated cartoons given by the Romanian Film Association, Bucharest
1984 Silver Medal, "Art, Science, Letters", Paris
1985 Prize of the Pescorocchiano Council
1990 First prize ex equo IV festa di Borgo, Rome
1998 Silver plaque, 25° International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sulmona
1999 Prize “Il Quadrivio”, 26° International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sulmona
2000 Prize “Il Quadrivio”, 27° International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sulmona
2002 Prize "Emozioni in armonia", Regional Province of Messina
2006 International prize "Beato Angelico", Rome
2014 Award of Excellence - Zonta Club Bucarest
2018 Romanian Government Award