SERBAN IONESCU
Kipsy (1)(2)(3), 2019
Kipsy (1)(2)(3), is a site-specific installation by Serban Ionescu that pays tribute to the majestic Hudson River and gives as an offering three functional artworks in the form of animated creatures. The actual name “Kipsy” spread fear and wonder in an 1899 New York Times article about a sea monster spotted by local new yorkers in the Hudson River. Out of the watery depths of memory and time, Ionescu reawakens this mysterious urban myth, into the Hudson Yards of today. Each of these sculptures carries its own artistic language, color base and function. Questions arise as we are invited to recline on these whimsical works: what really lies under the surface?
With his drawings in space, Serban Ionescu blurs the boundary between sculpture and design into a line one can inhabit. Ionescu’s work stems primarily from the automatic act of drawing from which his loose instinctual line and his vibrant pops of color expand into a sculptural collage/assemblage. Cartoonish features and limbs are pasted together to create an anthropomorphic form. These pet like shaky and skewed objects-entities poetically and playfully collapse gesture into being in the form of chairs, sculptures, installations or Architectures. His most recent exhibitions were a solo show at Larrie NYC and a two person show at Safe Gallery.