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In 2023, I returned to AUTOR with a collection that was never meant to be comfortable.
X Point was about nipples and censorship — about a body fragment that feeds life, signals pleasure, carries memory, and yet remains taboo. Especially in Romania. The pieces were created from molds taken directly from the nipples of my friends — women who trusted me with something intimate, vulnerable, real.
It was a collection about exposure. About ownership. About reclaiming what has been hidden, blurred, pixelated, forbidden.
The works existed in two parallel expressions.
Some were cast in silver — slightly dark, textured, the softness of skin translated into metal. Intimate topographies frozen into permanence. Others were made in resin — colorful, playful, almost joyful. They spoke about diversity, about difference, about honoring femininity in all its forms.
The reactions were intense.
Some people appreciated the work immediately. Others were visibly unsettled. I had women who, after understanding what was on the table, instinctively placed their hands over their chests and walked away in discomfort — almost in fear.
But fear of what?
Of a nipple?
Of recognition?
Of their own body, mirrored back at them without shame?
What I felt in those moments was not rejection, but pain. Deep conditioning. Internalized censorship. A reflex built over years of being told that this part of the body must be hidden, controlled, sexualized, or silenced.
I was slightly shocked. After my first year at AUTOR — when I felt embraced, celebrated — I expected openness. I imagined a playful, curious audience ready to engage with the theme intellectually and artistically.
Instead, I touched a wound.
And yet, something else happened.
Online, X Point performed beautifully. The collection sold well. I received custom orders. Conversations continued in private messages. Women engaged deeply, thoughtfully, courageously. The same pieces that caused visible discomfort in a physical space found freedom and resonance in the digital one.
That was the moment I understood the power of online presence — and the power of a self-selected audience. I realized I do not necessarily need fairs to sell my work. What I need is clarity, confidence, and the courage to stand inside my creative energy.
AUTOR 2023 did not give me the same feeling of being loved as the year before. It gave me something else: proof that art can expose tension. That discomfort is information. That sometimes the marketplace is not the measure of impact.
And most importantly, it reminded me that when you touch a taboo, you are not just showing an object — you are revealing a fracture in collective consciousness.
X Point was not about nipples.
It was about visibility.
