Having had her artistic studies interrupted by the rise of Communism, the once-denied studio itself became a major fixation: a symbol of self-determination, where artistic self and inanimate objects merge. Assisted by Ion Grigorescu, she made the 8mm film The Studio (1978), showing materials and objects becoming alive, being measured by her own body, and in this safe space, embracing diaristic, ritualistic, and mythical elements incorporated into a vast range of art techniques.
Working in a Communist country where socialist realism was the norm, Brătescu’s film and collage-based abstract art—rich in references to literature, theatre, and legend—was seen as a radical and political form of protest, and a celebration of female agency.
Largely focusing on the female form for her drawings, wall reliefs, and textiles, Brătescu drew on Aesop, Goethe, Greek myth, Bertolt Brecht, Carl Jung, and many others for inspiration—employing a wide base of craft skills. Examples include Hypostasis of Medea VIII (1980), Fără titlu (untitled) (2012), Esop (Aesop) Drawings Book (1967), The Working Desk (the Artist’s Desk) (1971), Towards White (Self-Portrait in Seven Sequences) (1971), and No to Violence (1974).
