Why Graphics:

 

I like to draw. I’ve always liked to draw, and I was always quite good at it,

as people seemed to be telling me. I can’t remember the first drawing I made

and to be honest I always felt as if my drawing activity never had a definite

start, like I’ve been doing this as long as I can remember: doodling on a piece

of paper or drawing Disney princesses at a very young age.

 

Even if I can’t remember when I’ve started to draw, I can definitely remember

the first time I was encouraged to take it one step further. My mother wasn’t

into the whole art scenario as far as she pictured my future career and the

person who stood beside me and took me to my first drawing class(I was 5

years old back then) was my grandmother. For that I can’t thank her enough.

 

I continued to follow drawing courses till I was 10 years old but have to stop

because school was beginning to get harder and my mother decided I have to

focus on my studies. As you can imagine, this was the worse news a 10 year old who

drew all day long could possibly receive, but I continued to draw whenever I had the

chance so, when I reached 12 years old the idea that I should attend an art high school

begun to root inside my head.

 

It took a lot of Sisif’s work to finally convince my mom to let me take the entry exam to Nicolae Tonitza fine art high school where I got admitted with maximum grades at all 3 exams, being the eighth student on the entry list out of over 150 names.

 

In the third year of high school I chose as my profile Graphic Arts and had the pleasure to work for the next 2 years on different techniques: traditional drawing, etching, painting, watercolor, print, digital drawing, photography, typography, illustration, sculpture, drawing from live model, collage and much more.

Since my second year of high school I participated at numerous contests from which I mention the poster competition for The Romanian Film Festival at Stanford and UC Berkeley Universities and had a number of exhibitions (e.g.: the exhibit at The Village Museum), as well as online interviews (http://puricele.ro/coltul-de-creatie-ro/arte-plastice-si-fotografie/604-teo-mechea.html), several collaborations for event posters, T-shirt designs and newspaper sketches later on.

 

I’m very interested in history, symbols and their meaning, so I also attended symbolism and etymology courses, philosophy and aesthetics courses, art history courses and art marketing workshops outside of the school curricula, most of which were through foundations that promote art and cultural values (Fundatia Calea Victoriei) or through auction houses (Artmark).

 

My mother grew very supportive of my passion throughout high school and together we combined my love for art and her love for traveling and went to see locations as Amsterdam, London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Rome, Florence, Napoli, Paris, Venice, Barcelona, Antalya, Tunis, Malta and even New Orleans in order to have a taste of their culture, museums and venues. This made me realize I also love traveling and multicultural experiences and taught me how to approach and behave among people with a different culture than mine and with different views and traditions.

 

Throughout high school I developed many hobbies and new interests such as: movies (especially Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Tim Burton, Alfred Hitchcock and later on Roman Polanski, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu and Jean-Luc Godard), polish posters (though I sadly never got the chance to go to Warsaw), theatre (I made a few theatre posters just for the fun of it), travelling, jazz music and reading (my favorite authors being Oscar Wilde, Charles Bukovski, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Umberto Eco, Mircea Eliade, and Edgar Allen Poe). Also, another huge passion of mine is human anatomy and therefore I have to mention I studied anatomy for 2 years in order to be better at drawing from live models.

 

My next step is to achieve a higher education degree and to thrive under professional guidance in the vast area of graphic arts.