Irina Neacsu

Irina Neacsu is a PhD Candidate. She studies the Romantic sketch, with a broader interest in historical and cultural mapping, and for the travel paper artifact – maps, journals, drawings - at the border between material and visual culture. Her research revolves around historical intersections between culture and nature, implying image, object, and gesture. She maintains a practice as a botanical artist, where her classical approach, mainly in graphite on paper, overlaps with mixed collage and stitching techniques to trace sensorial maps and interrogations of space. She graduated from the architecture university in Bucharest, Romania, and specialized in cultural landscapes. Her PhD is at the Art University of Bucharest, Romania, and for the 2024-2025 academic year, she is studying at Yale as a Fulbright grantee. In recent years, she has been awarded artist-in-residence grants at Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, and Denver Botanic Garden. She teaches botanical art and is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists. Her work won the silver-gilt medal in the 2022 RHS Botanical Art and Photography Show in London.