On Tuesday, September 16, 2025, the exhibition of painter Violeta Carp, entitled „Chivot”, will open in the Contemporary Art Hall of the Golești Museum.

Violeta Carp was born on February 17, 1956, in Bucharest. She attended General School No. 193 in the capital and then graduated from the Nicolae Tonitza High School of Fine Arts.

It was her uncle who first recognized her artistic talent, guided her in this direction, and gave her advice before her admission exam at Tonitza Highschool. He was also the one who showed her the first art album, took her on her first museum visit, and got her a subscription to the Art Section of the Central Library.

In high school she had remarkable teachers—established artists who encouraged her confidence in pursuing art: the ceramist Ioana Șetran, and the painters Gheorghe Roșu and Ștefan Sevastre.

At university she studied Monumental Art and Restoration, having as professors: Petre Achițenie, Ion Grigore, Nicolae Sava, Vasile Drăguț, Corina Popa, Adina Nanu, and others. Following this specialization, she became attracted to old church art and worked on restoration sites alongside Nicolae Sava. After graduation, she painted several churches in the *a fresco* technique, together with her husband.

Some of the churches she worked on include: Rușețu, Focșani, Onești, Bârlad, Iași, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Secu Monastery, Pângărați Monastery, among others.

In 1974, while still a student of ceramist Ioana Șetran, she was invited to England to take part in an international fine arts festival, along with other colleagues. This offered her the wonderful opportunity to meet renowned artists from other European countries, to visit art schools in Glasgow—including one designed by English architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh—as well as museums. It was one of the significant formative experiences in her career.

In 1981 she graduated from the Bucharest Institute of Fine Arts, Department of Monumental Art and Restoration, but only in 2018 did she become a member of the Union of Visual Artists of Romania.

She has held several solo exhibitions:

* 2024 – Art Space Gallery – Roads

* 2023 – Mihail Sadoveanu Library – Holidays, Memories

* 2022 – Otopeni House of Culture – The Fragrance of the Moment

* 2018 – Brâncovenesc Palaces – The Naturalness of Place

* 2015 – Orizont Gallery – Under the Same Sky

The exhibition at Golești is a painting and textile miniatures exhibition that reveals an unfeigned sensitivity. The artist herself explains:

“Chivot”—for its dictionary meaning, but also because the museum inspired me with the idea of a coffer, a keeper of treasures. Thus, I have placed these tears of color with the same gesture with which I once painted pearls on the saints’ vestments.”

Art critic Roxana Bărbulescu wrote about Violeta Carp’s works:

“Looking at Violeta Carp’s paintings we feel as if we enter a distinctive universe, one in which the artist’s joy of finding inspiration in a soothing yet vibrant space shines through.

Being a profoundly sensitive spirit, Violeta infuses all her works with this inner quality, a gesture reflected both in the chromatic choices and in the refinement of colors that already define her style, as well as in her compositional balance. Thus, vegetation, in all its beauty, takes on the qualities of a living organism, where plastic values are determined by an overall harmony.”

„The Chivot” exhibition will have its opening on September 20, 2025, at 1:00 PM, and will remain open to the public until  November 16, 2025.

We warmly welcome you!

Presentation: museum curator Nicoleta Popa Grigore