MAT city

Conceptual chess sculpture inspired by Rem Koolhaas arhitecture

materials: - Wenge wood
                - Hard Maple wood
                - European Ash wood
                - European Beech wood

Infinity

materials: Infinity symbol - Dark Red Meranti wood
                                       - Dogwood wood
                                       - African Blackwood wood
                                       - Merbau wood
                                       - Wenge wood
                                       - Balau wood
                                       - Zebrawood wood
                                       - European Yew wood
                                       - Sapele wood
                                       - Plum wood
                                       - Spalted Beech wood
                                       - Black Locust wood
                                       - Pau Ferro wood
                                       - Teak wood
                                       - Lodgepole Pine wood
                                       - neodymium magnets
           
                       Packaging - Lodgepole Pine wood
                                       - neodymium magnets
                                                                                                      

God is in details

A woman who will become mother ordered me a work of art which can represent love and protection for her future daughter.

materials:  - European Hornbeam wood
                - English Walnut wood
                - neodymium magnets

"Timishort Filmfest 2013" trophy

                                   

                                 
A trophy made for the best film award of the Timishort International Film Festival competition. The logo of the festival – the Timishort flower, is reproduced by disposing different coloured lenses in the form of petals. The centre of the flower is a pink lens, from which a small zipper – a symbol of this year’s edition of the festival, opens. The opening of the zipper can be seen, in the context of this creation, as a flowering or, in other words, as a natural victory.

materials: - Balau wood 
               - lens
               - perspex
               - mirror
               - inox
you can watch a clip with parts from making of Timishort Trophy creation, here
                                                        

story of a wooden stone

I used to be a tree. This may seem slightly unbelievable considering today I am just a small stone but if you plan on reading a story that a small stone that used to be a tree may have written, you might as well try believing it... it’s always fun believing stories. In my life as a tree I used to live on a hill, surrounded by nothing but blue and green, for blue was the sky and green was the grass, except for the parts on which I laid my shade, which were the only dark-green places on that hill. I often thought about myself as being something like a living picture, motionless yet not emotionless, how humans usually think about trees. It may sound to you like I was a very lonely tree and so I was, except for the fact that I didn’t knew it. It was only one morning that I started to feel something changing. A little green spot appeared not far from me but as days went by, it began to grow bigger and bigger until it seemed like the sun was not so bright anymore, for I was now standing in the shade of a new tree. We quickly became inseparable and not because we were both trees and couldn’t actually get away from each other but it felt like our roots were always happily drinking together from the same water, like humans sharing a drink in some lonely bar. Good times we spent like that and seasons changed until one day I found my friend all dressed in white. It was snowing and he was waving his branches at me as if saying goodbye. I never understood why. That was the last day I saw Christmas tree, for that was the name of my friend. I was as miserable as a tree can be and that made me split in a thousand small wooden stones which each bare the image of my friend. All of them rolled down the hill and so did I, the little stone I am today. The person who found me told me that humans also keep pictures of their beloved ones with them and that I was the only stone he had ever heard of doing such a thing. Therefore, he promised to share my story with others who may believe it as he did so here it is now, the story of a tree that once lost a friend but did not lose the memory of him.

I would smile if I were him, the small wooden stone.

Thank you, Aurora Dan!

This wooden stone is not drawn

Noble cabinet

Trees shelter precious things.

It all started when I was offered a rather special present: a huge tree root, beautiful

yet unusual in its appearance. Its shape was playfully constructed by many cavities that

were visible at the surface of the wood, so I considered this root to be a more like a present

for my imagination. Its twisted geometry seemed to be an instant invitation for me to

explore its possible meanings.

The first shape that the root took in my hands was the shape of a big wooden stone,

which still preserved the memory of its origins. Underneath its surface, the wooden stone

was full of empty spaces, which are said to be places of mystery. It is through absence, that

they enclose our ideas, making them ready to become tangible. The same way as silence

allows us to speak our mind, empty spaces make room for ideas to grow. I felt that every

cavity that the wooden stone had underneath was a space destined to be filled with

something precious. By making the contours of the empty spaces visible, I offered them a

real purpose: to shelter ideas that became reality. Three smaller wooden stones, one made

of cherry tree and the other two of nut tree were added as small drawers and the big

wooden stone became a “cabinet”. The surface of the drawers and also the cavities they

cover were wrapped in golden leather, which elegantly suggests the special care and

warmth that the wood has to offer.

A tree, which is a natural shelter, was finally turned, through its given purpose, into

a “noble cabinet”, a perfect place to safely keep one’s most dear belongings.

Copacii adăpostesc lucruri preţioase. 

Totul a început din momentul în care mi-a fost oferit un cadou mai special: o imensă rădăcină de copac, pe cât de frumoasă, pe atât de neobişnuită ca şi aspect. Forma ei era jucăuş construită din multe cavităţi vizibile la suprafaţa lemnului, ceea ce m-a făcut să consider această rădăcină ca fiind, mai degrabă, un cadou oferit imaginaţiei mele. 2 Geometria ei răsucită părea să fie o invitaţie imediată pentru mine de a-i explora posibilele semnificaţii. Prima formă pe care rădăcina a luat-o în mâinile mele a fost forma unei pietre de lemn uriaşe, care părea să păstreze încă memoria originilor ei. Dedesubtul suprafeţei sale, piatra de lemn era alcătuită dintr-o sumedenie de spaţii goale, despre care se spune că sunt locuri ale misterului. Tocmai prin absenţă, aceste spaţii conturează idei, pregătindu-le să devină reale. Tot aşa cum liniştea lasă loc minţii să vorbească, spaţiul gol oferă loc ideilor să crească. Am simţit că fiecare cavitate pe care piatra de lemn o avea dedesubtul ei era un astfel de spaţiu, menit să fie ocupat cu ceva de valoare. Făcând contururile goale să fie vizibile, le-am oferit un scop real, concret: acela de adăpost al ideilor deja devenite realitate – obiectele. Alte trei pietre mai mici de lemn, una din lemn de cireş şi două din lemn de nuc, au fost adăugate, şi astfel, ceea ce era înainte o uriaşă piatră de lemn a devenit un „cabinet”. Suprafaţa pietrelor de lemn devenite sertare şi, de asemenea, cavităţile pe care le acoperă au fost căptuşite cu piele de culoare aurie care sugerează, într-un mod elegant, grija şi căldura pe care lemnul le are de oferit. Un copac, care este un adăpost natural, a fost, astfel, transformat într-un „Cabinet Nobil”, un loc perfect pentru a păstra în siguranţă cele mai dragi obiecte. 
                                                                                                    
                                                                                                               written by Aurora Dan

materials: - White Poplar root wood 

                - English Walnut wood

                - Sweet Cherry root wood 

                - leather

Numbers of nature

Everything is made of numbers 1 2 3 4 ... how do you imagine a number? By the shape of it, the quantity it embodies, the sound of its letters being spelled? What if a number could be represented through an imaginary setup made concrete by the bursting out of a single creative thought? If we were to consider the bohemian theory of our world being nothing but a dream or, in other words, the ongoing fantasy of an almighty creator, we can consider every piece of it the representation of something we cannot fully understand through reason, but only be part of through our shared imagination. The sculpture I created is only a little piece of abstract thinking turned into a real, fragile, yet solid structure representing (and being represented by) a natural element –3 wood, in a variety of spectacular essences. All the pieces are bound together, but can nevertheless incorporate new elements. The „numbers of nature” sculpture is designed as a solid proof of the continuity and permanent interaction that unites all living elements of our world both inside its boundaries and beyond them. An abstract thing is turned, thus, into an element of our common fantasy – nature, as we know it. 

Totul este făcut din numere 1 2 3 4 ... cum vă imaginaţi un număr? După forma pe care o are, după cantitatea pe care o descrie, după sunetul literelor sale? Cum ar fi dacă un număr ar putea fi reprezentat printr-un ansamblu imaginar concretizat prin erupţia unui singur gând creativ? Dacă luăm în considerare teoria boemă conform căreia lumea noastră nu ar fi nimic altceva decât un vis sau, cu alte cuvinte, fantezia neîntreruptă a unui creator atotştiutor, putem considera fiecare parte a ei ca fiind o reprezentare a ceva ce nu putem înţelege pe deplin prin raţiune, dar din care putem face parte prin imaginaţia noastră împărtăşită. Sculptura pe care am creat-o este numai un mic gând abstract transformat într-o structură reală, fragilă dar solidă, reprezentând (şi fiind reprezentată prin) un element natural – lemnul, într-o varietate de esenţe spectaculoase. Toate piesele sunt conectate între ele, dar pot, cu toate acestea, să primească şi să încorporeze elemente noi. Sculptura „Numere ale naturii” este concepută ca o dovadă solidă a continuităţii şi interacţiunii permanente care uneşte toate elementele vii ale lumii noastre, deopotrivă în interiorul graniţelor ei, cât şi în afara acestora. Un lucru abstract devine, astfel, un element al fanteziei noastre comune – natura, aşa cum o ştim.  

                                                                                                                    written by Aurora Dan

materials: - different wood essence
               - inox
               - acrylic paint