LEONARD URSACHI
I am a Romanian-born artist. I grew up under a dictatorship, from which I defected, and spent years border-hopping before settling in New York. My art reflects our contemporary world of porous borders, vulnerable shelters, and mutating identities.
My sculptures and installations use architectural references as tropes for systems that enclose and exclude, protect and reject. I’m interested in the boundaries systems create and how those boundaries are transgressed. I’m interested in the impact of structures – material, theoretical, social, political – on individuals and communities.
A number of my sculptures are in the form of bunkers. Human-scale, woven of willow branches or covered in feathers, they are as much about home and shelter as they are about conflict.
Human impact on the environment is another leitmotif in my art. Some of my sculptures borrow the form of wells. The well is a shared resource and social gathering place. There still exist communities that depend on wells, the health of which is affected by conditions that originate both locally and across the globe—pollution, industrial waste, climate change, wars.
Much of my work is site-specific—the physical, historical and cultural aspects of the site inform my concept and use of material. I enjoy showing not only in museums and galleries but also in public spaces, where my work reaches audiences both in and outside the art world. In that context, my work not only addresses issues of boundaries, but embodies them.
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