Ioana graduated the University of Art and Design in Cluj Napoca, painting section, and since the time of her graduation she exhibited her works of art in large group exhibitions such as Diploma Show, Vizualia or university projects organized at the Center of Interest and the Museum of Art in Cluj Napoca. The artist lives and works in Sibiu, her hometown, and her works, already present in many private collections in the country and abroad, can be admired from March 8 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Brukenthal National Museum, located on 6 Tribunei Street.
The title of the exhibition, New Moon in Virgo, refers to the mobilizing potential of the beginning, which Ioana feels, taking the first steps towards her affirmation as an artist. Detached from the faithful image of reality, Ioana Tocoaie sees her painting as a visual poem: random juxtapositions of images with recurrent feminine symbolism, brought together in a utopian manner as in a pop art bestiary. Ioana's concept revolves around her own identity and the desire to bring into question, in a plastic manner, the expressive potential of femininity, beyond the stale air of stereotypes - nauseatingly worn out - and slogans with misogynistic subterfuge. A deliberately naïve aestheticism, pleasant and agile in attracting our attention, is evident in the surreal compositions created by Ioana. The deliberate anatomical deformations, the fragmentary decorative insertions, the suite of everyday household objects interspersed among real or fantastic animals and plant elements with electrifying chromatics create a bizarre atmosphere oscillating between the real and the fantastic, in the same way as astrological predictions.