OANA ŞTIRBU

Oana Știrbu (b. 1978, Bucharest, Romania) is a visual artist living and working between Bucharest and Berlin. Her multidisciplinary practice bridges abstract-figurative oil painting, mixed media, recycled material processes, and conceptual installation. With academic backgrounds in both Fine Arts and Psychology, Știrbu investigates the transformative journey of inner life—particularly the ways trauma and formative experiences continue to reverberate in the present.

Time is a central quality of her work. Her paintings and installations unfold gradually, retrieving the past in order to transform the present. Through tactile surfaces and reflective gestures, she creates spaces where fragility and resilience coexist, inviting viewers into an intimate process of emotional awareness.

Her research-driven practice explores how memory, identity, and collective history intertwine, giving material form to the invisible movements of psychological and emotional experience.

For PAST PERFECT / PRESENT TENSE, Știrbu presents ‘Rearview Memories’, an interactive installation of car mirrors, each engraved: “Events from the past are closer than they appear.” The mirrors follow a visitor's movement, symbolizing how an unresolved past is persistently reflected, and urge conscious consideration and emotional integration.

Știrbu has exhibited in group shows across Europe, including in Barcelona, Salzburg, Athens, and at Romanian Design Week in Bucharest. She continues to develop her work as an ongoing dialogue between personal narratives and the shared textures of human experience.