Curator_
Nicole Zihua Zhang
Artist_
Yvonne A. Rotărescu (Romania)
Venue_
Perfetti Gallery, 52 Caledonian Rd, London N1 9DP
Exhibition Essay_
As an artist committed to telling stories, Yvonne A. Rotărescue have endeavored to represent the lives of the nameless and the forgotten from Romania, to reckon with pass, and to respect the limits of what cannot be known. For Rotărescue, visually narrating Romanian counter-histories is closely related to her search for and confirmation of cultural heritage and her concern for the life experiences of ordinary people.
Beginning with her own familial history in Yesterday… So Today Can Come (2023), Rotărescue extends her inquiry into Romanian archives, centering not on heroic or politically prominent figures, but on the often-overlooked lives of ordinary individuals. This shift signals a deliberate departure from canonical historical narratives, embodying a counter-historical sensibility that runs throughout her practice.
Her work meditates on the inherent fragmentation of historical memory, foregrounding the impossibility of accessing a complete or coherent past. Through visual strategies of obscuring, blurring, and magnification, she complicates the viewer’s relationship to the archival image—reminding us that what is preserved is always partial, mediated, and unstable.
In her most recent series Amass (2025), she engages with archival materials from Colecția Costică Acsinte and the Muzeul Județean Ialomița, yet intervenes in these sources through the use of resin and charcoal. These materials veil the faces in the original photographs, resisting clarity and recognition. A skeletal metal structure supports part of the works, while distressed magnifying lenses further disrupt the act of viewing. As the viewer peers through these lenses, only fractured, elusive fragments come into focus—underscoring the limits of both memory and visibility.
This exhibition offers a concise overview of Rotărescu’s recent archival research and artistic practice. The spatial character of Perfetti Gallery—a hybrid space combining a Cantonese restaurant with an art venue—unintentionally or perhaps deliberately lends an everyday dimension to this intergenerational and transnational dialogue.
About Artist_
Yvonne Ana Rotărescu is a visual artist and researcher. Graduated with a Master of Research in the Arts, in Theory and Philosophy at Central Saint Martins and a diploma in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism at London College of Communication, her practice encompasses photography and moving images, using them as both creative sources and tools for critical analysis, research, ethical consideration, and argumentative writing. She is passionate about exploring visual archives and merging them with their attached cultural, historical, and philosophical understandings. Photographs and archival documents hold significant meaning for her, revealing insights into memory, subjective human experiences, representation, and the exploration of her own thoughts and beliefs.
Born in Bucharest, Romania and lives in London, UK.
