Natură statică cu gips antic 

Ion Pacea created this painting, “Natură statică cu gips antic”, which translates to "Still Life with Antique Plaster," sometime in the 20th century. Pacea lived through Romania’s transition to communism and its subsequent fall. The plaster cast of a foot is set against a vibrant orange cloth, alongside yellow pears and a full vase. The foot, a fragment of the body, raises questions about wholeness, loss, and the idealization of the human form. The fragmented body, so to speak, can allude to the dismemberment of the individual under authoritarian regimes. As an artist working under a communist regime, Pacea navigated the pressures to conform to socialist realism while seeking personal expression. It is in the quiet of the still life, where intimate stories of resilience and the search for beauty, may be told.