About


Alexandra Cicorschi lives and works in San Francisco, California. She graduated from the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, where she focused on etching, a traditional graphics technique. Her interest in wood as a medium emerged from her passion for making furniture, which became non-functional as her pieces evolved into more organic compositions.

In her artwork, strips of wood become her brushstrokes. Small movements inside wood grains influence large movements in interwoven flat sculptures. Open angles guide the fluidity of lines telling a story of perpetual movement and transformation. Continuity is at the base of creation because everything evolves from something. Where we decide to start our story is just the act of deciding what segment to focus on.

Alexandra finds inspiration in elements of nature, such as tree knots, clusters of leaves and rock formations. Her interest in contemporary dance echoes in her artwork, in the dialog between large gestures, broken movements and repetition.


Education


2007 Bauhaus University, Weimar, Germany - MFA
2004 National University of Fine Arts, Bucharest, Romania 




About the medium


The majority of the wood materials used are salvaged from local demolition sites and discarded furniture. Alexandra grew up in Romania, a country which until December 1989 was under communist regime. Her early surroundings taught her that necessity and lack of financial resources can fuel creative reuse as well as appreciation for an object’s true potential. This is something she continues to explore in her art practice as well as her day to day life.

Wood is a living material even after extensive human manipulation - cutting, milling, painting. Trees lose their organic appearance in order to fit our needs. Few people are aware that discarded slabs from demolition sites can have a history dating back many hundreds of years. By stripping and repurposing wood materials, her artwork reveals the organic origins of the objects surrounding us. The use of open angles and the break of symmetry in her compositions reflect nature’s spontaneity and playfulness and how we truly evolve in life.




“When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured.”

― Herman Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte