IRINA HOBLE Surrey, United Kingdom

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Irina was born and raised in Romania, she studied at the Lycee of Fine Arts, Bucharest, and has a first degree in Architecture, University of Bucharest, Ion Mincu. Although her artistic journey started during the pandemic, Art and Architecture have always been talking to each other in her mind throughout her career as an Architect. The beauty of abstract art from an accomplished RIBA Architect.

Abstract paintings, expressive and dynamic, soothing yet powerful, expressing feelings through the power of nature, colourful and energetic in places, but mostly calming yet mysterious, created to engage the viewer with the process that is taking place in front of their eyes. The beauty of abstract art coming directly from an accomplished RIBA Architect who is trying to ‘escape’ the riguorosity of straight lines by creating constraints-free artwork.

My paintings are all about energy. Energy of thoughts, movement and feelings. Of course, I draw my inspiration from nature, but a nature that gets through a deliberate distortion process to encompass emotions and express feelings and inner energy. I subconsciously let someone else paint the bucolic and idyllic places, I am more interested in what is released when the viewer is trying to second-guess what I am actually painting and takes all that energy and movement in with a deep breath. Unruly and imaginary ocean shores, wild forests and hypothetical detailed representations of what nature has to offer, are reoccurring themes that I often find myself immersed in. And where do I get all this energy from? It is most like from this constant moving away from my daytime job as an Architect, as I am trying to move away from precision, certitude and reality when painting. I am ‘de-constructing’ what I am ‘constructing’ in CAD when preparing working drawings. So in a way, this is my driving force, my energy, as it works both ways; this ‘moving-away’ continuously feeds into my artwork pieces, but equally, the freedom of expression I get to experience during my painting sessions feeds back when I am at my desk, cool, calm and collected, trying to deliver a project on time and budget for my clients. The two disciplines happily co-exist and help each other grow in their different directions.