Teodor Siminic

My work often refers to Romanian mythology. I’m fascinated by Romanian popular-culture creatures, which resemble to dragons and are called Zmei. According to the legend, Zmei steal golden apples from the King’s lands. And only young heroes with selfless bravery can retrieve these apples and take them back to the King along with the captured dragons. Mythology was always a means for humans to explain or react to conditions and events they could not comprehend. Thus, Zmei become for me symbols that need to be deciphered. One has to read behind the lines to get the wider picture. When creating, I feel somehow obliged to discover what lies inside or beneath each piece’s surface; I need to find its story and purpose; and then I have to feel it on my body; to provoke a “face to face meeting” with my inner self. Only at a later stage of this process I decide on colors or other fine details concerning form.