Hortensia Mi Kafchin

In this intimate conversation with LC, Hortensia Mi Kafchin (b. 1986, Galati, Romania) explains how most of her paintings can be read like a journal. The information she absorbs from art history, philosophy, science fiction, conspiracy theories, and popular culture, mixes with childhood memories from Romania, as well as with her dreams and fears. She talks about how a near-death experience shifted her entire worldview, and how her recent transition from male to female inspires her to explore internalized issues related to her gender, and her relationships to God, time, and death. She describes these experiences among others, to elucidate some of the meanings behind the reoccurring elements in her paintings.

Pollution has clogged all of our pores. Radiations of all kinds traumatize our tissues. Chemtrails. Will nature survive this new culture? Will any bit of humanity survive these transformations? What will the humanoids of the future look like?

In Mi Kafchin’s canvases, compositional tension is built between the push and pull of brutalist architectural splendor and feral, radioactive nature; while narrative dimensions unfold with the inscrutable mythology of post-Soviet displacement, disinformation and conspiracy, randomness and rebellion.

In “Chemtrails,” Kafchin visually represents her incessant internal escapades, which attempt to process how radioactive toxins from Chernobyl and other infiltrating forces altered her body and mind. Kafchin boldly evokes surreal and not popularly acknowledged concepts. Her work illuminates the frightening realization that in the grand scheme of things, we have little agency in controlling that which we don’t fully know—and as Kafchin illustrates, it’s quite a lot.