Flora Sopa offers here an installation of 10 oil paintings in large sizes (1m x 1m), so that the visitor feels truly absorbed in the observation of these forms. The paper used is thick, often used for engraving, as it allows for better recording of fluidity and colour. Through a mixture of pigments and water, the reproduction of the sound frequency is illustrated in a wide movement. Organic fluidity is the key word used by the artist to describe his work.

It is the architecture of the Art Centre of the Foundation itself that inspired the artist to create F1F#1. During her participation in the exhibition Plongeons (2016), the young woman felt a special connection between her paintings and this place where water is omnipresent; she wanted to bring out her impressions through a new work. The title of the work refers to the two frequencies/musical notes used in the making of the series of paintings, which correspond to the two colours: light blue and golden green.

Born in 1991 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Flora Sopa was attracted to art from an early age. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in art in 2010 before entering the painting degree at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca. In this context she spends a semester in Rennes where she discovers new perspectives, notably abstract painting. Back in Romania, one of her professors tried to persuade her to give up abstraction, noting that all artists return to the figurative … This confrontation convinced her to finish her studies in France and she chose the Haute Ecole des Arts du Rhin, in Mulhouse, interested in different methods and approaches. Today, Flora Sopa travels from one country to another and is nourished by different cultures and thoughts. Alsace occupies a unique place for the artist, because it is here that she really started her career.

Flora Sopa’s work revolves around synesthesia, a phenomenon by which two or more senses are associated. It is mainly on sight and hearing that the artist concentrates, looking for the correlation between sound and colour. His inspirations? Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and Ernst Chladni (1756-1827). The latter devoted his life to the study of the formation of cymatic patterns: by vibrating a metal plate covered with sand with a violin bow, he discovered that the grains form patterns on the surface. Flora Sopa’s research was mainly carried out through oil painting: colours, affected by the vibrations of a given frequency, form patterns.