Maria Gutu

I am a visual artist from the Republic of Moldova. I am studying at the Academy of Music, Theatre, and Fine Arts in Chisinau. Photography is a way of documenting my life. I photograph people, places, and things for a better understanding of myself as a human being. I began to photograph and make collages last year, trying to create a visual form of my thoughts and feelings. “Inner pieces,” series of black and white collage, is my long term project. I try to explore forms, dreams, and all inner feelings in a monochromatic way. Collages are an intimate art. I explore my emotions in a visual form, being alone. During work I get lost in elements, shadows, and forms. It is a way of leaving myself. I am interested in nature, sexuality, fear, freedom. I am interested in human beings. I am interested in all things and I try to combine it in my work. Collages are my personal diaries, my poetry without words, my inner pieces. I believe that through photography/collage it is possible to give new life and identity to our inner states.

I was born and I live now in a post-Soviet country that is faced with many problems such as poverty and depopulation and this is why I decided that it’s important to document people’s activities, and also to promote the arts, especially through young people.

I make my collages from my own photographs and from old soviet magazines, by slicing, cutting and de-contextualizing the images I start to gain a greater appreciation of a modern visual art.