*2003 in Cluj-Napoca, Rumänien; lives and works in Berlin & Cluj-Napoca
An Artist Interview #41
Luana Cloșcă
by Luana Cloșcă
Exhibition view Addendum
Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Berlin
2025
Photo: Fynn Bornemeier
How do you usually begin a new series?
It always starts differently, but there’s a rhythm I recognize by now. I work in series, rarely individual works, and each takes about a year. It’s a way to contain my focus, and it gives the work its own life cycle. Usually, while I’m working on one series, I accidentally stumble upon the idea of another. There’s a moment when I’m painting and realize: this belongs to something else. I try to stay faithful to what I initially intended for the series I’m in, because otherwise everything dissolves, but I keep these small fragments aside, usually for months. I slowly filter them through literature, film, and art history and then at some point a few concrete ideas emerge.
How do you usually begin a new series?
It always starts differently, but there’s a rhythm I recognize by now. I work in series, rarely individual works, and each takes about a year. It’s a way to contain my focus, and it gives the work its own life cycle. Usually, while I’m working on one series, I accidentally stumble upon the idea of another. There’s a moment when I’m painting and realize: this belongs to something else. I try to stay faithful to what I initially intended for the series I’m in, because otherwise everything dissolves, but I keep these small fragments aside, usually for months. I slowly filter them through literature, film, and art history and then at some point a few concrete ideas emerge.
What’s your current series about?
It’s still in its very beginning, so the boundaries aren’t clear yet. In very broad terms, it’s about the inherent fiction of the image — the division between the image of the eye and the image of the real. I’m working mostly with biblical and mythological texts and imagery, especially because I wanted material that’s both recognizable and has been reinterpreted many times. Hopefully, the viewer already has assumptions and associations attached to the image. That way, I can puzzle it around more easily and create works that look at the mechanical aspects of the fictions of the eye.
I always keep a digital folder with everything that catches my interest: paintings, sentences from books, film stills, quick sketches, pictures I take while traveling, screenshots, and things people send me. I collect them over months, sometimes years. The folder always has a name, but it’s never the actual title of the work. This time it’s called Expulsion from Heaven, or maybe Paradise, something around that feeling. I’ll probably change it, but it helps me hold the mood of the work while I’m still forming it.
What’s your current series about?
It’s still in its very beginning, so the boundaries aren’t clear yet. In very broad terms, it’s about the inherent fiction of the image — the division between the image of the eye and the image of the real. I’m working mostly with biblical and mythological texts and imagery, especially because I wanted material that’s both recognizable and has been reinterpreted many times. Hopefully, the viewer already has assumptions and associations attached to the image. That way, I can puzzle it around more easily and create works that look at the mechanical aspects of the fictions of the eye.
I always keep a digital folder with everything that catches my interest: paintings, sentences from books, film stills, quick sketches, pictures I take while traveling, screenshots, and things people send me. I collect them over months, sometimes years. The folder always has a name, but it’s never the actual title of the work. This time it’s called Expulsion from Heaven, or maybe Paradise, something around that feeling. I’ll probably change it, but it helps me hold the mood of the work while I’m still forming it.
And how do you get to that point, how does a series start taking shape?
Because of my routine, a lot happens in the summer. I spend the summer in Romania, often by a lake, and that’s where maybe half of each project really takes form. I sit outside for hours, read, swim, and write things down. I imagine the works in my head long before they exist physically. They rarely end up looking how I picture them, but I build their atmosphere there—the rhythm, the light, the density. I am building up this ideal painting, which I never get to make physically. Partly, this ideal image is also what this new series is about. Besides the concrete themes, a lot of inspiration comes from my routines.
And how do you get to that point, how does a series start taking shape?
Because of my routine, a lot happens in the summer. I spend the summer in Romania, often by a lake, and that’s where maybe half of each project really takes form. I sit outside for hours, read, swim, and write things down. I imagine the works in my head long before they exist physically. They rarely end up looking how I picture them, but I build their atmosphere there—the rhythm, the light, the density. I am building up this ideal painting, which I never get to make physically. Partly, this ideal image is also what this new series is about. Besides the concrete themes, a lot of inspiration comes from my routines.
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by Luana Cloșcă
Expulsion from a shared terrain, 2025
Oil on canvas
45 x 55 cm
Do you make sketches during that time?
Yes, there is always some sort of drawing routine. Before last summer, I spent 5 months in New York. I was going to the Met one or two times a week, drawing from Greek and Roman pottery. That became the backbone of my last series. The anatomy of the figures was an exciting solution for painting, and conceptually, I was drawn to the scenes of either eroticism or violence that they often portray.
At the same time, I was watching Beau Travail by Claire Denis on repeat. It’s a film about soldiers in the French Foreign Legion, and it’s mostly scenes of their training — beautifully choreographed, almost like a dance. Their movements are precise, ritualized, physical, but behind that discipline, there’s this immense erotic tension, an unfulfilled desire for contact. Affection becomes something more charged, almost violent. I was intrigued by this constant oscillation between care and cruelty, intimacy and aggression.That’s what drew me in — the idea that one gesture can hold both tenderness and harm, and how censorship of desire can transform actions.
It’s similar in art history too; I was looking at images where violence and sensuality are inseparable. I’m interested in that moment before the punch lands, before the kiss happens—the suspended tension. That’s where most of my paintings live.
Do you make sketches during that time?
Yes, there is always some sort of drawing routine. Before last summer, I spent 5 months in New York. I was going to the Met one or two times a week, drawing from Greek and Roman pottery. That became the backbone of my last series. The anatomy of the figures was an exciting solution for painting, and conceptually, I was drawn to the scenes of either eroticism or violence that they often portray.
At the same time, I was watching Beau Travail by Claire Denis on repeat. It’s a film about soldiers in the French Foreign Legion, and it’s mostly scenes of their training — beautifully choreographed, almost like a dance. Their movements are precise, ritualized, physical, but behind that discipline, there’s this immense erotic tension, an unfulfilled desire for contact. Affection becomes something more charged, almost violent. I was intrigued by this constant oscillation between care and cruelty, intimacy and aggression.That’s what drew me in — the idea that one gesture can hold both tenderness and harm, and how censorship of desire can transform actions.
It’s similar in art history too; I was looking at images where violence and sensuality are inseparable. I’m interested in that moment before the punch lands, before the kiss happens—the suspended tension. That’s where most of my paintings live.
So that’s what you mean when you say your images live in that “in-between space”?
Exactly. The images I choose always hold that ambivalence. I look at them for a long time, trying to understand how they’re built—how they create that dual reading. I dissect their composition, their gestures, the way light hits a shoulder or a wound. Once I understand the mechanism, I try to rebuild it in another context, so it becomes something new again.
So that’s what you mean when you say your images live in that “in-between space”?
Exactly. The images I choose always hold that ambivalence. I look at them for a long time, trying to understand how they’re built—how they create that dual reading. I dissect their composition, their gestures, the way light hits a shoulder or a wound. Once I understand the mechanism, I try to rebuild it in another context, so it becomes something new again.
.jpeg)
by Luana Cloșcă
Corrected Version of Rythm, 2025
Oil on canvas
53 x 61 cm
You’ve talked before about “Panoptical Rooms”. What are those?
“Panoptical rooms” is the name I give to the imaginary spaces where these new paintings happen. I’ve been trying to paint one for years. It’s not an architectural room. It’s more psychological, like a museum distilled into a single mental space.
I’m interested in what happens when you walk into a museum and recognize something you’ve seen before, how pleasure and knowledge mix in that instant. There’s a flirtation between viewer and image, a strange intimacy. It’s sensual, almost erotic. I want to create a space where the viewer feels surrounded by images that reflect and echo one another and where these abstract interactions between object and gaze become somewhat visible.
You’ve talked before about “Panoptical Rooms”. What are those?
“Panoptical rooms” is the name I give to the imaginary spaces where these new paintings happen. I’ve been trying to paint one for years. It’s not an architectural room. It’s more psychological, like a museum distilled into a single mental space.
I’m interested in what happens when you walk into a museum and recognize something you’ve seen before, how pleasure and knowledge mix in that instant. There’s a flirtation between viewer and image, a strange intimacy. It’s sensual, almost erotic. I want to create a space where the viewer feels surrounded by images that reflect and echo one another and where these abstract interactions between object and gaze become somewhat visible.
You often work with the nude. How do you approach it now?
The nude, violence, eroticism and power have been the four pillars of my work for the last years. I think of them as instances that overlap. The figures have become more abstract, but they’re still about the body, or more so, its presence.
Partly, I am interested in its timelessness. There are not many physical aspects that discern a historic nude from a contemporary one — it is posture and composition that are dated. There is an inevitable lineage of conventions in the history of painting that I have to work with and around when painting a nude, and that dialogue is very exciting.
I try to avoid describing the body and focus more on tension points, movement, direction, and intention — to have it appear as a consequence of these happenings. In effect, it becomes more a trace of a body in action rather than a direct view of it. Avoiding description and illusion is also a way to point out that this — like all images, though not always as visibly — is constructed and thus carries an agenda.
You often work with the nude. How do you approach it now?
The nude, violence, eroticism and power have been the four pillars of my work for the last years. I think of them as instances that overlap. The figures have become more abstract, but they’re still about the body, or more so, its presence.
Partly, I am interested in its timelessness. There are not many physical aspects that discern a historic nude from a contemporary one — it is posture and composition that are dated. There is an inevitable lineage of conventions in the history of painting that I have to work with and around when painting a nude, and that dialogue is very exciting.
I try to avoid describing the body and focus more on tension points, movement, direction, and intention — to have it appear as a consequence of these happenings. In effect, it becomes more a trace of a body in action rather than a direct view of it. Avoiding description and illusion is also a way to point out that this — like all images, though not always as visibly — is constructed and thus carries an agenda.
.jpeg)
by Luana Cloșcă
The Lovers in Reverse, 2025
Oil on polyester
81 x 60 cm
And how did the fabric paintings come about?
Completely by accident. I was living in Harlem, and there was this enormous, bright “Texas Chicken” sign right outside my window. It glowed all night. I couldn’t sleep, so I went to a fabric store to find something to block it and found this green polyester — very shiny, synthetic, almost liquid. I hung it up as a curtain, and every night I looked at how it caught the light. Eventually, I wanted to paint on it.
The material was cheap, but it fascinated me. Because it’s very thin and porous, the paint just passes through. I painted one side, and when I flipped it, the back looked even better — blurred, accidental, ghostly. I started working intentionally that way, painting on one side, then almost destroying it, so the only image that remains is the one that emerges on the reverse. I call them “back paintings.” The back carries all the energy of the act, but none of the control.
And how did the fabric paintings come about?
Completely by accident. I was living in Harlem, and there was this enormous, bright “Texas Chicken” sign right outside my window. It glowed all night. I couldn’t sleep, so I went to a fabric store to find something to block it and found this green polyester — very shiny, synthetic, almost liquid. I hung it up as a curtain, and every night I looked at how it caught the light. Eventually, I wanted to paint on it.
The material was cheap, but it fascinated me. Because it’s very thin and porous, the paint just passes through. I painted one side, and when I flipped it, the back looked even better — blurred, accidental, ghostly. I started working intentionally that way, painting on one side, then almost destroying it, so the only image that remains is the one that emerges on the reverse. I call them “back paintings.” The back carries all the energy of the act, but none of the control.
.jpg)
by Luana Cloșcă
As I goes to Infinity, 2024
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 cm
.jpg)
by Luana Cloșcă
As I goes to Infinity, 2024
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 cm
by Luana Cloșcă
Expulsion from a shared Terrain of Vile, 2024
Oil on polyester
80 x 60 cm
You often use found images. How do you select these?
It’s a mix of intuition and intention. Currently, most of my references come from antiquity up to the 18th century, periods where the image and art carried another kind of mythic weight, and a different social purpose. I’m drawn to subjects that have been reinterpreted for centuries, like the Expulsion from Paradise. It’s not about replicating them, but acknowledging their afterlife, all the eyes that have looked at them before mine, and how this might have transformed the image. I will never be able to look at these images in their initial stage or fully understand the social and cultural mechanisms that lie behind them. All I have is this after image, but as it still exists now, it remains contemporary, even if it was created centuries ago. In a way, my works look to contain the present reality of this image on top of the past one.
You often use found images. How do you select these?
CIt’s a mix of intuition and intention. Currently, most of my references come from antiquity up to the 18th century, periods where the image and art carried another kind of mythic weight, and a different social purpose. I’m drawn to subjects that have been reinterpreted for centuries, like the Expulsion from Paradise. It’s not about replicating them, but acknowledging their afterlife, all the eyes that have looked at them before mine, and how this might have transformed the image. I will never be able to look at these images in their initial stage or fully understand the social and cultural mechanisms that lie behind them. All I have is this after image, but as it still exists now, it remains contemporary, even if it was created centuries ago. In a way, my works look to contain the present reality of this image on top of the past one.
How do you decide on colors then?
Color for me is about atmosphere, not description. For example, the deep blue I often use, it feels like a vacuum, like falling into a dark pool. It absorbs you, unlike black, which creates an impenetrable surface. The silver shimmer of the synthetic textiles, on the other hand, feels reflective, metallic, and almost cold; it gives off the feeling of a screen. I think of color as an effect: some hues pull you into the painting, others bounce you away. I try to choreograph that movement of the eye.
Over time, my palette has become very reduced. Now I mostly work with an 18th-century range of pigments. It keeps a link to history, but I also bring in synthetic materials that didn’t exist then, so the work lives between times, something of the past and something very now.
How do you decide on colors then?
Color for me is about atmosphere, not description. For example, the deep blue I often use, it feels like a vacuum, like falling into a dark pool. It absorbs you, unlike black, which creates an impenetrable surface. The silver shimmer of the synthetic textiles, on the other hand, feels reflective, metallic, and almost cold; it gives off the feeling of a screen. I think of color as an effect: some hues pull you into the painting, others bounce you away. I try to choreograph that movement of the eye.
Over time, my palette has become very reduced. Now I mostly work with an 18th-century range of pigments. It keeps a link to history, but I also bring in synthetic materials that didn’t exist then, so the work lives between times, something of the past and something very now.
That’s a very deliberate technical process. Does it help you find freedom later?
Yes, exactly. I like having structure before painting starts, preparing materials, fabrics, and references with precision, and sketching the image a couple of times in different iterations. I rarely stay true to the sketches, but it is a way to get to know the image in depth. Having those technical rituals beforehand creates a discipline that allows freedom later. It’s a way to bring order without strangling the image.
Painting is always about a conversation with the past. You’re constantly negotiating with history, learning its language, misunderstanding it, twisting it into something new. I am trying to integrate this belief in all parts of the process.
That’s a very deliberate technical process. Does it help you find freedom later?
Yes, exactly. I like having structure before painting starts, preparing materials, fabrics, and references with precision, and sketching the image a couple of times in different iterations. I rarely stay true to the sketches, but it is a way to get to know the image in depth. Having those technical rituals beforehand creates a discipline that allows freedom later. It’s a way to bring order without strangling the image.
Painting is always about a conversation with the past. You’re constantly negotiating with history, learning its language, misunderstanding it, twisting it into something new. I am trying to integrate this belief in all parts of the process.
Photo: Luis Bortt
Contact
interview
Leopold Schaefer
Luis Bortt