Ion Zupcu

Ion Zupcu is a native of Romania, the country where he was born and where he first fell in love with photography. Born in 1960, Zupcu studied photography in the capital of Bucharest and worked in a studio during the 1980s. Early on, Zupcu’s aesthetic interests in photography varied, ranging from landscape photography to still-life compositions beginning in the 1990s. Moving to the United States in 1991, Zupcu’s introduction to the works of salient American photographers like Ansel Adams inspired a passion for photography and a yearning to be technically skillful, not only as a photographer but also as a printer. His extensive body of work uses separate series to explore creative inquiries. From sepia-toned still-life to black and white and later color abstractions, Zupcu uses photography as a time-marking tool, archiving his evolution as an artist through his continued minimalistic explorations. Using a wide variety of materials from flowers, vases, bottles, and eggs to manipulated paper, shadows, architectural molds, and monochromatic sculptures, Ion Zupcu developed cohesive visual frameworks and systemic languages of colors and forms.
“His photographs do not look like their subjects. By aiming his camera at nothing more than paper and light, he dissolves the very idea of the subject. Zupcu’s photographs show us something more than our eyes would see; he shows us what only he can see.” – Jan Staller.
Ion Zupcu has exhibited his work nationally and worldwide, such as in the museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the Lalomita County Museum of Art, Romania. His photographs have been published in B&W Magazine and Lens Work and are part of esteemed private and public collections.

Photography & Works