Safety First! – Solo Show Roxana Donaldson @ Dalgart Gallery (2025)

Safety First is an ongoing artistic research project investigating safety as an affective and mnemonic construct, developed through painting, installation, and spatial arrangements. This page documents the Safety First! exhibition topography (DalgART Craiova 2025, co-curated by Roxana Donaldson and Valentin Boiangiu | Ref: ARC.25.06) as a data point reference and fieldwork log.

EXHIBITION TOPOGRAPHY: DATA POINT REFERENCE + Fieldwork- LOG_06.2025

REF: ARC.25.06 LOCATION: DalgART Gallery Craiova | JUNE 2025
Memory is never a perfect rendering, but a pulsing organism that degrades and persists through fragments. The visual noise and the rawness are in full alignment with my artistic credo. These are imperfect, yet alive images—the closest proxy to the direct experience of the exhibition.
Rather than a traditional display catalog, these in situ captures function as an organic extension of the research. The choice for this “forensic” visual language stems from my role as a Memory Analyst: memory is a pulsing organism that persists through fragments. The raw, unmediated images reflect the essence of the “quiet disquiet archive,” providing a direct experience of the installation’s spatial configuration.

Roxana Donaldson Safety First Diagrams of Protection Day 1 Painting Detail featuring protective black hand written inscriptions on grey reclaimed vintage domestic fabric
Roxana Donaldson Safety First Diagrams of Protection Day 1 Painting Detail featuring protective black hand written inscriptions on reclaimed vintage domestic fabric

ALSO VIEW: PAINTING GALLERY |  OBJECTS GALLERY  | AFTERMATH EXHIBITION |
INSTALLATION FULL RESEARCH DOSSIER  | PRESS + VIDEO

Corner Spill - black spheres migrating in exhibition space Roxana Donaldson, site-specific installation, 2025
Black Series - three stratified black exhibition archives Roxana Donaldson, site-specific corner, 2025
Statement Wall - exhibition text and assemblage art black spheres Roxana Donaldson, 2025
Safety First exhibition - conversation in front of memory archives Roxana Donaldson, 2025
Exhibition View - audience near stratified pink exhibition archive Roxana Donaldson, 2025
Social Validation - visitors talking icon 2 in site-specific exhibition Roxana Donaldson, 2025
"Safety First Research Archive - cover for complete documentation reserach by contemporary artist Roxana Donaldson, 2025"
Press Release for the Aftermath of Safety solo show by fine artist Roxana Donaldson. Thumbnail of red painting on recycled bed sheets
Concept

“Safety First!” forces an encounter with the paradoxical poetics of safety and maps the “quiet disquiet” that resides within moments presumed to be secure, mapping the visceral feeling of anxiety through painting and assemblage in a conceptual and Post Minimalistic Process Art fusion. It is an ever-evolving core unit of research within Roxana Donaldson`s practice as a Memory Analyst painter, where paintings form the central core, and the assemblage art objects (black spheres) serve as tactile extensions of the paintings into the three-dimensional realm.

Exhibitions

In 2025, Safety First was on view at DalgART Craiova and at Calea Victoriei 91-93 Gallery, Bucharest.
The artist continues to update it by adding new pieces that recreate a new anxiety proposition with each new space and display.

ACQUISITIONS / CONTACT