Serban Ionescu

Digital technology has been the most transformative force in twenty-first-century design. As might be expected, most object makers who have embraced the new possibilities tend to focus on 3D-printing and other tools that can operate in free space. Serban Ionescu is one of the few to have mastered the expressive possibilities of digital cutting. He uses CNC waterjets and plasma cutters as drawing tools, allowing him to translate his energetic line to steel. Three-dimensionality and functionality are achieved through folding and layering.

The cartoonish yet edgy effect is completed with powder-coating and often upholstery: Ionescu’s works are like vivid Technicolor shadows. They are full of personality, though, always animated and often anthropomorphic or zoomorphic—they have the presence, as he says, of “a character or a pet in a room.”¹

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