Interviewed and Translated by Elaine Yu
Young Romanian artist Alina Teodorescu was born in 1981, she has started showing her art work since 1998. She used to work on glass, canvases, wooden panel and has toured around Europe. She started working on iPad at 2011, and started showing and lecturing around the world since. Her works of art combine multi medias and artistic forms, to explore the conflicts and integration of multi cultures. Through her finger she illustrates her inner longing and questionings via tablet computer, presenting in the eyes of viewers.
羅馬尼亞青年藝術家艾琳娜曾以玻璃，畫布，木板等媒介進行藝術創作，從1998年開始，她的作品便開始在歐洲各國進行展出。2011年開始，艾琳娜開始通過ipad進行新的繪畫創作，並在全球各地進行巡迴展出和講座。她的作品採用了多種媒介并結合了不同的藝術表現形式，通過繪畫來探討多元文化的融合與衝突，隨著指尖的滑動將她內心的呼喚與吶喊表達與平面電腦的屏幕之上，呈現於觀者眼前。
ART.ZIP: How did you start?
AT: I first started to paint when I was a child. My father was an artist and we used to paint byzantine orthodox churches together in the area where I was born, in the Romanian mountains. I studied art, architecture and design in Romania, Italy and London. I used to be an international interior designer and I had my own studio where I worked on some projects related to art works and art creations. I have never stopped art creation and the pursuit of the true meaning of arts. A few years ago, I started scribbling and painting on iPad and I saw David Hockney’s art exhibition on iPad and he was the one who gave me the courage to start exhibiting the digital works I was already working on. Two years ago I started art creation on new media and canvas full time, as I found that I couldn’t stop.
ART.ZIP: 您是怎麽開始藝術創作的？
AT: 我從很小的時候就開始畫畫了。我的父親是一位藝術家，因此我自幼便受到他的影響和熏陶，並一同在羅馬尼亞山峰一帶的拜占庭式教堂進行藝術創作。後來我在羅馬尼亞，意大利，倫敦進行藝術繪畫與建築方面的深造。我曾經是國際室內設計師，有自己的工作室也做過許多與藝術品有關的項目。我從未停止過藝術創作以及對藝術真諦的探索。幾年前, 我便開始採用ipad來創作作品，後來David Hockney展覽中展出的用ipad創作的繪畫，這激勵了我開始展出那些我用數碼手段創作的作品。兩年前我開始全身心投入到新媒體與架上繪畫方面的藝術創作。
ART.ZIP: Tell us about the way you use the iPad to create your art.
AT: I believe the materials and the techniques of an art are symbolic.
An artist has to choose the media according to properties that correspond to his rhythm. I am a dynamic person who gets ideas as flashes. The use of technology helps me capture them in every single moment, it helped me evolve faster and gave me freedom in moving and thinking.
A deep stylistic integrity can only come out of honesty and it doesn’t depend on the media you work with. A spontaneous hand move that is connected to my inner life makes me completely submit to the surface I work on and makes the works have similar impact whether they are done on the iPad screen or on canvas.
ART.ZIP: 你是如何在ipad上作畫的？
AT: 我相信藝術創作的材質與方式是象征性的。藝術家總在找尋與自己屬性共鳴的旋律。我時常靈感如泉湧。新媒體讓我有可能去捕捉我每一瞬間的靈感。它幫助我的藝術進步、進化，並且讓我在行動與思想上有更多空間和自由。
藝術深邃的陳述往往來源於真摯，而並非媒介。隨機的移動連通生命深處的畫筆讓我完全與畫作合一、媒介是iPad 屏幕或是畫布並不是至關重要的。
ART.ZIP: The location of your show in London was an unusual one. How did you decide to do it there?
AT: Playboy was an intriguing choice for the venue of my exhibition, because the works exhibited here validate the human body as a volume of intense interaction between good and bad, spirituality, frivolity, compromise and strengths, homogeneity vs individuality.
Park Lane is ideally situated to reflect my works giving kudos to my personal reflections on love, loss and isolation in a such an artificial world such as the world of money.
ART.ZIP: 您這回展覽的場地非常不尋常，您是如何決定在這樣一個場地進行展覽的呢？
AT: 我在Playboy私人會所舉行展覽，對我來說是十分有趣的。這次展出的一系列的作品是探索人體以及與其相關聯的好與壞；共通性與個體性；以及衍生出的靈動、輕浮、妥協等命題。
Park Lane的地理位置優越，而另一方面又是如此恰當地象征了資本主義的人造文明。這些象徵與我的作品源源呼應。我的靈感亦來自金錢至上的世界：對愛情、迷失與孤立的個人體驗。
ART.ZIP: What is your work about?
AT: I work in series. The semi figurative works that I create possess incarnated life and they are highlights of a continuous observation process. I observe life and I react to its surprises. By blending canonic forms that express most deeply the universal spiritual needs of all humanity with symbols of frivolous life that we often consider as normal, I am trying to find my own definition of integrity.
As an interior designer I was trained in the art of compromising to keep clients happy. I gave up on that career to quit compromising in expressing my creativity. Art is supposed to be the most honest manifestation of the human being. I entered this world and I am discovering a profligate system that can be mostly penetrated through compromising. So I stopped verbally fighting the world. Now I paint to express feelings that I don’t have words for.
ART.ZIP: 您的作品是關於什麽主題的？
AT: 我創作不同系列的畫作。這次的半人體作品擁有輪回的生命，他們是連續觀察過程中的亮點。我觀察生命然後對其帶來的神奇做出反饋。通過將表達宇宙共通的全人類共享的精神需求的經典教條與我們習以為常的代表當下浮華生活的符號相結合，我試圖尋找一個我自己對“真誠”的定義。
作為一名室內設計師，我接受的訓練是“一門如何取悅客戶和金主的藝術”。我放棄了那條路，我不想犧牲自己的創意和表達來委曲求全。在我看來，藝術應該是人類誠實的宣言和表達。我來到這個世界，發現如斯糜爛腐壞的系統，充斥著對原則的舍棄。於是我不再在口頭上質問這個世界，而是讓顏色線條和格局來表達我難以言訴的種種。
ART.ZIP: What are you working on next?
AT: My show in Park Lane will stay on till the end of July. I never know what is next. This is the beauty that inspires me to keep on working.
ART.ZIP: 你下一步作品將往哪方面發展？
AT: 我在Park Lane的展覽將於7月底結束。我從來都不知道我下一個主題將是什麽。這便是藝術最讓我興奮的地方。
