Corn Poppies 

Editor: We’re looking at "Corn Poppies", a still life piece. It's listed as potentially done with gouache, acrylics, pastels, or photography— or maybe a combination! The artist is Constantin Piliuta. It feels delicate and a little wistful, almost like a memory fading. What do you see in this piece, that maybe I'm missing? Curator: Fading, yes, like pressed flowers tucked away in a book. The hazy outline, the tentative strokes. For me, it evokes the Romanian countryside, almost dreamlike. It's a still life, but the execution feels… different, less about capturing precise reality, more about a personal impression. Piliuta almost coaxes the poppy's essence onto the canvas, don’t you think? As though memory and material get intertwined. The muted colours – what do they bring to mind for you? Editor: Muted... a sense of nostalgia, definitely. It's like seeing these vibrant poppies through a veil of time, but its an individual experience rather than like an "accurate depiction" of something that can be agreed on. But is that a common thing with still life work? Curator: I suppose there’s a dialogue happening – one between the traditional subject, the corn poppy in this instance – a potent symbol of summer in bloom, though potentially now with medicinal associations, with how memory impacts what the viewer sees as art.. Do you feel a sense of the past weighing in at all? Or an awareness of Piliuta? Editor: Absolutely a feeling of Piliuta's past weighing in -- this perspective never occurred to me when approaching other still life art.. Thanks so much. Curator: A reciprocal sentiment; thank you too for this fresh and youthful awareness. Now, it calls to me with even more vigour than before!