Danut Tolnacs

Lives and works in Medgidia, Romania

Artist statement

My practice explores the human figure as a site where inherited memory, personal history and psychological tension become visible. Working primarily with charcoal, graphite, pastel and mixed media, I construct fragmented figures that move between representation and abstraction. The face—and particularly the eyes—often remains an anchor, while the surrounding anatomy is interrupted, erased or absorbed into gestural marks. In Deep Genes, the initial marks and fields of colour are created before the portrait appears. They represent structures that precede individual choice: inherited patterns, collective memory and emotional traces carried into life. The figure is not placed over them as a separate image; it emerges through them, sometimes resisting their presence and sometimes disappearing into it. My recent works extend this investigation through nautical charts and physically altered paper. Years spent working at sea have made these charts part of my lived history rather than symbolic decoration. Routes, coordinates, folds and damaged surfaces become part of the body’s anatomy—a terrain where identity, displacement and memory intersect. Through layering, erasure, controlled fragmentation and material intervention, I approach drawing as a form of excavation. I am interested not in likeness alone, but in what remains beneath it: the marks we inherit, the paths we follow and the fragile traces through which a human presence persists.

Artwork