Artist Spotlight: Raluca Drăghici
Raluca-Ioana Drăghici is a painter whose work moves quietly between abstraction and figuration, building a visual language rooted in intuition, symbolism, and a long-standing fascination with harmony. She approaches painting as an ongoing exploration of form: an attempt to understand how images emerge, shift, and stabilize on the threshold between perception and imagination.
Her practice is guided not by narrative intention but by what she calls a form of “interior mathematics”, a subtle calibration of movement, colour, and structure. Each painting becomes a suspended moment of clarity: an image that appears almost symmetrical, almost perfect, but never entirely so. It is within this deviation that her work finds its depth.
Origins of a Visual Language
Raluca Drăghici’s artistic vocabulary began with the unexpectedly fertile motif of the butterfly. This fragile symbol of transformation, with its nearly perfect bilateral form, offered her a philosophical lens through which to examine the world. From afar, the butterfly seems ideally symmetrical; up close, every wing carries small variations. This tension between what appears perfect and what truly is gave shape to her early research.
Fleeting Wings II, Raluca Drăghici
Acrylic on canvas
Executed in 2025
Image courtesy of Anca Arambașa
Over time, the butterfly detached from its natural context and evolved into a structural idea, one that guided her attention to the symmetrical tendencies present in everyday objects, shadows, and fleeting impressions.
Her works are often compared to psychological inkblots, a resemblance she accepts with intrigue but without intentionality. “Interpretations come from others,” she notes. “I don’t search for a meaning to transmit. The viewer completes the work.”
Between Shadow and Theatre
Although her process begins with concrete objects, Raluca Drăghici’s paintings possess a markedly atmospheric, almost theatrical presence. She frequently speaks of theatre as a metaphor for the mind, a place where objects and shadows enact quiet performances. This scenographic sensibility lends her compositions a sense of space—rooms of thought rather than depictions of the physical world.
Shadows play a central role in this vision. They are not distortions but divisions of reality, traces that shape how we perceive the world’s permanence and fragility. Her images often feel staged yet transient, like fragments of a larger, imagined set that disappears the moment one attempts to define it.
Re-creating flight, Raluca Drăghici
Acrylic and oil on canvas
Executed in 2025
Materiality and Process
Raluca Drăghici’s process balances intuition and discipline. She begins by photographing an object, then digitally manipulates the image in search of a form that possesses internal harmony. Once the digital composition reaches that point of necessary balance, she patiently rebuilds it in paint. Layers are added and adjusted by hand—never mirrored mechanically—allowing the natural imperfection of the gesture to soften the rigidity of the digital reference.
This dual process ties her practice to a broader tradition of abstraction, where the search for ideal forms coexists with the contingencies of material reality. She often references the structured clarity of Japanese painting as a distant influence: work that appears effortless precisely because of the discipline behind it.
Yet she remains careful not to come too close to any single inspiration. “If you let an influence stay too long, you risk losing your own voice,” she says.
Education, Mentorship, and Early Development
The artist’s entry into the arts was shaped by a series of unexpected turns. Before painting, she studied engineering—an experience that honed her structural thinking but left her searching for deeper expression. An early mentor in Brașov introduced her to oil painting, a moment she now describes as pivotal.
Emergence III, Raluca Drăghici
Acrylic on canvas
Executed in 2025
Image courtesy of Anca Arambașa
Her admission to UNArte followed naturally, even if she initially approached it without clear expectations. The academic environment proved supportive, especially in her early years. Several professors encouraged her to look with curiosity, to seek harmony, and to approach the world’s beauty without hesitation. She continues this path in her Master’s studies, refining her technique and deepening the conceptual roots of her practice.
Exhibitions and Recent Projects
After winning the Fresh competition at Elite Gallery Bucharest, Raluca Drăghici took part in a study trip to Balchik, Bulgaria, where she created ‘Vase of Flowers I’. The Balchik residency became a moment of artistic consolidation, after which her intuitive process, digital reworking, and meticulous painting were presented publicly in the group exhibition Balchik Art Residency 2025 at Elite Gallery.
Vase of Flowers I, Raluca Drăghici
Acrylic on canvas
Executed in 2025
Image courtesy of Anca Arambașa
Other works were also exhibited within Out of Sight, Out of Mind, at the Brâncoveanu Palaces in Mogoșoaia, Romania. Her upcoming participation in a new exhibition at the Brâncoveanu Palaces Cultural Centre further reflects her increasing visibility, though Raluca remains intentionally discreet about her future direction. For her, privacy acts as a form of artistic protection — a way to keep the working process open, fluid, and free to evolve.
A Philosophy of Searching
Raluca is drawn to the act of searching—searching for harmony, for clarity, for understanding. Each work begins with a concrete object but transforms into something more symbolic through the process of reinterpretation. This search also defines her broader outlook: she values the virtue of not knowing, of remaining receptive to a world that shifts constantly.
She approaches her career with simplicity and integrity, aware that artistic maturity comes gradually. Her parallel work in a news media context exposes her daily to the pressures and volatility of contemporary life, sharpening her need for clarity within the studio — a place where images unfold at their own pace through lateral thinking, masterful composition, and intricate layering.
Each painting holds a quiet balance between precision and imperfection, a visual echo of her belief that harmony lies not in symmetry itself but in how we perceive it.
This is the world of Raluca Drăghici—a world of images that appear perfectly composed just long enough to remind us that perfection was never the point.
Connect with the Artist’s Work
Raluca-Ioana Drăghici’s practice reflects Opera Art Advisory & Collective’s commitment to cultivating thoughtful, introspective, and uncompromising contemporary voices. Her work — poised between intuition, harmony, and symbolic depth — invites viewers to experience painting as a place of searching, reflection, and quiet revelation.
To discover available works by Raluca-Ioana Drăghici, including limited-edition prints contact info@operaadvisory.com or visit operaartadvisory.com.
Opera supports emerging artists through curatorial initiatives, collector engagement, and collaborations that help shape the cultural landscape of tomorrow.
Detail of Emergence III, Raluca Drăghici
Acrylic on canvas
Executed in 2025
Image courtesy of Anca Arambașa