Vlada Popescu
Capturing the energy of city life.
My paintings are inspired by the beauty of the present moment and how its simplicity can gain significance when we pay more attention to it. I aim to explore how emotional attachment to moments, places and people can shape our memories of them. I invite the viewer to see the world through my eyes, whilst leaving space for their personal interpretations and emotions.
My interest in light, movement, colour and contrast is crucial to my atmospheric cityscapes. I have a curiosity to unearth the complex stories these scenes hold. The image of an empty street set in a typically busy city suggests the potential loneliness of its inhabitants, with the lights symbolizing human presence.
Despite the isolation and separation present in my figurative scenes, I intend to capture the dreamlike feeling of the often-overlooked mundane aspects of life that shape its beauty. I choose to romanticize them further through my painting process. Oil painting enables me to explore mark making and blending effects useful for rendering the contrast between the detailed clear image of the real world and the abstracted, fragmented scene stored in our visual memory.
Vlada Popescu graduated in 2023 from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, with a First-Class Honours degree in Fine Art. Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, Dalkeith Palace, Glasgow Art Club and Mall Galleries, for various prominent exhibitions.
Throughout her artistic career, Vlada has won several awards, such as a Cass Art commendation award at the Scottish Prize for Fine Art and the Farquhar Reid Trust Prize at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.
Her work was longlisted for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition 2024, as well as the Global Design Graduate Show by Arts Thread in the same year.
In 2025, Vlada completed the Royal Drawing School residency at Dumfries House and was selected to be a member of the Scottish Contemporary Collective (SCCOCO), supported by Tighnabruaich Gallery.
As part of the programme, she undertook a three-week residency, followed by a group exhibition featuring the selected cohort. Vlada also participated in Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year, Season 10, which is a televised art competition.
In 2026, Vlada’s work got longlisted for the Scottish Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
In addition to her own painting practice, which explores cityscapes and the quiet, everyday moments of urban life, she has engaged in a range of commissions and collaborative projects.
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Second Glance
Eva Hewitt · Innes MacLellan · Kirstin MacKinnon · Vlada Popescu 10 Oct - 1 Nov 2026A year on from their first exhibition together, the four artists of SCCOCO’s inaugural cohort return to Tighnabruaich Gallery. Second Glance is not simply a continuation of Introducing . It...Read more -
Introducing - Scottish Contemporary Collective
Eva Hewitt · Innes MacLellan · Kirstin MacKinnon · Vlada Popescu 26 Jul - 24 Aug 2025The inaugural exhibition of the Scottish Contemporary Collective marks a new era for contemporary Scottish art. Featuring the four emerging artists—Eva Hewitt, Innes Maclellan, Kirstin Mackinnon, and Vlada Popescu—this show...Read more
