Dalmonia Rognean is a Romanian artist living between Vienna and Venice.
She works with photography, sculpture and mixed media.
Starting from collected accounts, her work intuitively unfolds into a metaphysical and magical atmosphere. Without surrendering her imagination to the empirical, she maintains a connection to it, using this tension playfully to constantly challenge predetermined narratives. This stance, visible both aesthetically and formally, is shaped in part by 20th-century Romanian literature, where imagination, language and absurdity became ways of claiming freedom against convention and authority.
Rather than relying on a linear storyline, she builds toward world-making. Grounding her images in the language of reality, she expands them beyond it, creating worlds where multiple perspectives surrounding her concept coexist and nothing is obliged to resolve.
In both her sculpture and her photography, she is interested in stratification: the layers that form the material she sculpts from, as well as those that compose her images. She is drawn to the interplay between the surfaced and the unsurfaced, where objects and figures appear hidden and revealing at the same time. The forms that become visible still remember the surface they emerged from.
Her pull toward the space beyond sensory perception is fed by her fascination with human habits,
and with the beauty that emerges when we transform our flaws and desires into fear-confronting rituals.
With a background in theatre and film studies, she currently studies Photography and Time-based Media with Maria Ziegelböck at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
She is a co-founder of the ‘Against Photography’ art gallery, located in Vienna’s 15th district.
She works with photography, sculpture and mixed media.
Starting from collected accounts, her work intuitively unfolds into a metaphysical and magical atmosphere. Without surrendering her imagination to the empirical, she maintains a connection to it, using this tension playfully to constantly challenge predetermined narratives. This stance, visible both aesthetically and formally, is shaped in part by 20th-century Romanian literature, where imagination, language and absurdity became ways of claiming freedom against convention and authority.
Rather than relying on a linear storyline, she builds toward world-making. Grounding her images in the language of reality, she expands them beyond it, creating worlds where multiple perspectives surrounding her concept coexist and nothing is obliged to resolve.
In both her sculpture and her photography, she is interested in stratification: the layers that form the material she sculpts from, as well as those that compose her images. She is drawn to the interplay between the surfaced and the unsurfaced, where objects and figures appear hidden and revealing at the same time. The forms that become visible still remember the surface they emerged from.
Her pull toward the space beyond sensory perception is fed by her fascination with human habits,
and with the beauty that emerges when we transform our flaws and desires into fear-confronting rituals.
With a background in theatre and film studies, she currently studies Photography and Time-based Media with Maria Ziegelböck at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
She is a co-founder of the ‘Against Photography’ art gallery, located in Vienna’s 15th district.
selected shows2026
‘It’s got something to do with love’, group show, Against Photography ☆ Vienna, AT
Biennale de la Photographie de Mulhouse, ‘Sediments of Memory’, group show, Städtische Galerie ☆ Freiburg, DE
2025
‘Narrative I. Topographies of Memory’, group show, Fotogalerie Wien ☆ Vienna, AUT
‘Contact Zones’, group show, Artcare ☆ Vienna, AUT
‘De-constructed’, group show, PEP x Loop - Raum für aktuelle Kunst, B-Part ☆ Berlin, DE
Offgrid Days Festival, ‘Restless draft in undried hollow’ ☆ Vienna, AUT
2024
urbanize! Festival, ‘I think I’ve seen this place before’ ☆ Vienna, AUT
Dalmonia Rognean and Roozbeh Rashnu, ‘I think I’ve seen this place before’ x site-specific show at St. Marx ☆ Vienna, AUT
‘Other Spaces’, group show, PEP x Loop - Raum für aktuelle Kunst, B-Part ☆ Berlin, DE
2023
Match!’, group show, Austrian Fashion Association / Vienna, AUT
2021
Off Grid Festival, ‘Vor einem großen Walde’ ☆ Vienna, AUT
Charta: A Photobook Festival, group exhibition, ‘Mojo’ ☆ Rome , IT
awards/nominationsNominated by Maria Ziegelböck: Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Expanded Horizons – New Photographic Perspectives Award 2026 ☆ DE
Nominated for the Simacek Award by Jakob Lena Knebl 2025 ☆ AUT
Winner Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023 ☆ IT
books/publications‘Till’, Dalmonia Rognean & Vanessa Szopory ☆ 1. Ed. of 7 ☆ AUT 2025
‘When the old river turns, we hide, we seek’ ☆ 1. Ed. of 9 ☆ AUT 2022
& part of:
‘Probelauf’ ☆ De Gruyter ☆ DE 2024
‘Fragments from Eight ☆ Zone ☆ IT 2024
‘Wildness’ Yogurt Magazine 04 ☆ Rome, IT 2023
Alltag 03 ☆ Vienna, AUT 2023
‘Cats’ ☆ Dito Publishing ☆ Rome, IT 2023
‘Mojo’, Yogurt Magazine 03 ☆ Rome, IT 2021
‘It’s got something to do with love’, group show, Against Photography ☆ Vienna, AT
Biennale de la Photographie de Mulhouse, ‘Sediments of Memory’, group show, Städtische Galerie ☆ Freiburg, DE
2025
‘Narrative I. Topographies of Memory’, group show, Fotogalerie Wien ☆ Vienna, AUT
‘Contact Zones’, group show, Artcare ☆ Vienna, AUT
‘De-constructed’, group show, PEP x Loop - Raum für aktuelle Kunst, B-Part ☆ Berlin, DE
Offgrid Days Festival, ‘Restless draft in undried hollow’ ☆ Vienna, AUT
2024
urbanize! Festival, ‘I think I’ve seen this place before’ ☆ Vienna, AUT
Dalmonia Rognean and Roozbeh Rashnu, ‘I think I’ve seen this place before’ x site-specific show at St. Marx ☆ Vienna, AUT
‘Other Spaces’, group show, PEP x Loop - Raum für aktuelle Kunst, B-Part ☆ Berlin, DE
2023
Match!’, group show, Austrian Fashion Association / Vienna, AUT
2021
Off Grid Festival, ‘Vor einem großen Walde’ ☆ Vienna, AUT
Charta: A Photobook Festival, group exhibition, ‘Mojo’ ☆ Rome , IT
awards/nominationsNominated by Maria Ziegelböck: Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Expanded Horizons – New Photographic Perspectives Award 2026 ☆ DE
Nominated for the Simacek Award by Jakob Lena Knebl 2025 ☆ AUT
Winner Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023 ☆ IT
books/publications‘Till’, Dalmonia Rognean & Vanessa Szopory ☆ 1. Ed. of 7 ☆ AUT 2025
‘When the old river turns, we hide, we seek’ ☆ 1. Ed. of 9 ☆ AUT 2022
& part of:
‘Probelauf’ ☆ De Gruyter ☆ DE 2024
‘Fragments from Eight ☆ Zone ☆ IT 2024
‘Wildness’ Yogurt Magazine 04 ☆ Rome, IT 2023
Alltag 03 ☆ Vienna, AUT 2023
‘Cats’ ☆ Dito Publishing ☆ Rome, IT 2023
‘Mojo’, Yogurt Magazine 03 ☆ Rome, IT 2021