This week we welcome Adina Andrus, a Romanian-born visual artist who uses sculptures, drawings and installations to confront questions of memory, belonging, and cultures across time and space. Her works allude to a universal pool of images and symbols that we inherit, consume and are guided by, while simultaneously contributing new meanings.
Andrus is a recipient of grants from the Queens Council for the Arts, and the Arts Alive grant from New York State. She has exhibited work in the United States and Romania, including the Spring/Break Art Show (New York, NY), CollarWorks (Troy, NY), LABSpace Gallery (Hillsdale, NY), GoggleWorks Center for the Arts (Reading, PA), and Make a Point Gallery (Bucharest, Romania). She studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University Boston, and the Art Students’ League in New York City.
Artist’s statement:
“My work describes human systems, networks of beliefs, blood ties and stories that keep communities together. In looking at both small daily habits and momentous rituals, both old and new, I express the commonalities in our lived experiences across history and cultures. I am particularly interested in supernatural narratives as reflections of human anxieties and triumphs.
Recent wall sculptures, vessels and paintings resemble votive objects and devotional paraphernalia and merge traditional materials with collected man-made objects. Controlled, repetitive patterns take on meaning as symbols of particular daily occurrences, food ingredients, cosmic elements or personal memories. What is mundane can be sacred and what is disposable can be a treasure trove. Gold is a prominent material used alongside ceramic and plastic.
My process is rooted in traditional craft. Through the materiality and tactility of my media, I invite the viewer to come closer and observe the details of the works as a way of discovering personal and universal meaning. Drawings on textured surfaces and 3D objects are in a constant dialogue between intuitive and carefully planned and allow me to preserve my connection to ancestral making while expanding the dialogue of traditional and contemporary art.”
See more of Adina’s work on her website and Instagram.
See more of our artist profiles here.
