Art, Nature & Cultural Landscapes

Irina Neacșu is a Romanian visual artist, researcher, and author whose interdisciplinary practice brings together botanical art, art history, and cultural landscape studies.

Architect with a PhD in Visual Arts at the National University of Arts in Bucharest (UNARTE, 2026), focusing on tree portraiture and the cultural construction of landscape in nineteenth-century Romanian art. Her work explores drawing as both an artistic medium and a method of investigation, with particular attention to botanical imagery, landscape representation, and the historical relationships between nature, place, and cultural identity.

A Fulbright Scholar at Yale University (2024–2025) and recipient of the Bonte Fellowship at the National Museum of Art of Romania (2025–2026), she has developed research on tree portraiture, Romantic landscape traditions, and the intersections between art and environmental history.

In recent years, she has also been awarded artist-in-residence fellowships at Oak Spring Garden Foundation and Denver Botanic Gardens, where she pursued botanical art and research projects. These residencies have contributed to her interdisciplinary approach, bringing together artistic observation, botanical knowledge, and the study of plants within their historical and cultural contexts. She is also the recipient of one silver medal and one silver-gilt medal at the RHS Botanical Art and Photography Show held in London in 2026 and 2022.

Her publications include volumes on nature-culture intersections: Transylvanian Flowers (2024) and Tree Portraits: The Cultural Construction of Landscape in Romanian Drawing (1850–1920) (2026). Alongside her research and writing, she develops botanical artworks, exhibitions, and curatorial projects that investigate the relationship between natural forms, cultural heritage, and contemporary environmental concerns.