Matei Dragomir
While exploring subjects such as memory, time, and ways of manipulation, I use color as a tool to enhance the psychological effect within the work.
Matei Dragomir (2000, Romania) creates paintings that focus on how images can carry emotion and memory. His works often show cropped faces, partial bodies, or simple interiors, framed in a way that limits what we can see. By tightening the composition, he directs attention to small details such as a gaze, a gesture, or a shift in color. Working with muted tones like ochres, greys, and deep reds, he builds a controlled atmosphere in which the image feels paused rather than fully explained.
Dragomir’s practice moves between figurative and abstract painting. He works from personal photographs and images from film, but removes them from their original context by altering framing, light, and scale. This process changes how the images are read, shifting focus from narrative to feeling. His paintings do not tell a clear story but instead examine how memory and perception shape what we see. His work invites the viewer to slow down and notice the emotional weight in small details, something that often gets lost in today’s fast visual culture.
