Worlds of longing and wonder
- Andrea is inspired by folk traditions from a variety of global cultures
- She intends for her work to be a starting point for wonder and imagination
- Her mosaic murals are featured in New York subways and the US embassy in Romania
The natural world and traditional ways of working with materials inspire Andrea Dezsö’s work, from her tunnel books to her illustrations, paintings and prints. A childhood visit to an artist’s house museum set her on the path to an art career. Andrea left her native Transylvania, Romania to study in Hungary, then moved to the USA, where she is now based. In her creations, humans and creatures freely inhabit fantastical worlds. “With tunnel books, what I am really looking for is creating spaces of longing,” she says. "Humour is part of my work, too. Tough subjects must have some kind of levity.” Andrea particularly enjoys the nature and personality of traditional Japanese handmade paper such as kozo, washi and gampi. “It sings at a specific register,” she says.
Discover her work
INTERVIEW
I am curious about how people work with materials, tools and folk traditions – the traditional ways people express themselves in a region. I am interested in how materials speak, how they convey meaning and converse with the maker.
I grew up in Romania, in the 1970s and 1980s, under the communist regime. As travelling was not an option, books, stories and my imagination took me to new and different places.
I work with paper that cuts in an extremely clean way by hand, and there are only a very few number of papers that allow for this. The paper cannot have little tufts of fibres sticking out, because that yanks viewers out of the experience of looking into a world, as they see the creation as something made with paper.
My books are springboards for the imagination, as I create scenes that do not necessarily have a story attached to them. I want viewers to immerse themselves and visualise what they might be curious about or interested in. I am trying to create experiences of wonder.
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