Frontispice for Unwritten Love Poem 1987

Curator: This is Geta Bratescu’s "Frontispice for Unwritten Love Poem," created in 1987 using mixed-media collage techniques on paper. What’s your initial reaction? Editor: It strikes me as serene, like gazing at a distant moon, or maybe a shadowed sun? It is strangely calming; I feel a pause as I observe it, the blue calling up inner spaces in need of clearing and some quiet reflection, perhaps. What do you think the name implies? Curator: That's lovely. Considering Bratescu's broader practice, this "Frontispice" acts like a preface to something perpetually unsaid or unseen. Her work frequently circles ideas of self-perception, the studio space, and the roles women are meant to embody. Editor: The contrast between the smooth, block-colored side and the textured, almost crinkled other half feels potent. Like holding two distinct realities side by side and, yes, the unspoken words hanging there... perhaps it is a poem just never written! I'm thinking, there is definitely a duality at play that keeps my mind turning over different versions and variations. It's that lovely state of suspended potential, I suppose. Curator: Indeed, the textured side, achieved through collage, versus the flat, uniform color – a sort of dialogue about materiality and its potential. The circle itself—often seen as a symbol of completion, of infinity. The division feels crucial here. She likely wants us to consider how ideas are not monolithic but full of nuance. Her interest in the line, too, emphasizes this – an attempt at demarcation but also at connection. Editor: Right, that raw edge of the textured paper! As though something ripped apart and hastily, carefully glued back together… Or not completely together. So, love, an abstraction... two incomplete halves aspiring for completeness, something greater. In my mind, if a poem were ever really 'unwritten', maybe this is what it would like. Or, feel. I enjoy the mystery! Curator: And that enduring mystery is arguably the source of this collage’s strength and subtlety. Bratescu uses these elementary forms and contrasts to invite an endless speculation, much like a poem you can never quite finish. Editor: A truly beautiful consideration of form, and feeling... or lack thereof, if it never comes to pass... So much to think about! Thanks.