All Photos By Gail

Architect, designer, and artist, Andreea Avram Rusu  channels fine art and the practice of good design to produce original lighting and furniture collections intended to engage the senses and invite interaction. The foundation of everything she makes are materials that are true to the earth — found in nature and always exquisite. The concept for her Botanica  Chandelier (2021) was inspired by the idea of nature  left to its own devices, free to express itself —sensual, resonant, and unabashedly wild.

For Botanica, Avram Rusu began exploring how to manifest her fascination with plant life in glass form. The shape of the leaves came into focus first, but it wasn’t until a stay in Portugal in early 2021, while visiting the country’s famed botanical gardens, that the concept fully crystallized. Her vision was banana flowers, weighty and sculptural, brought to life with surreal flair.

Created by master glass blowers, no two glass pieces are the same. All are offered as either a single color with edging, or as two colors, one on the inside of each petal and a complementary one on the outside. The piece is never one thing, forever responding to the light within and around it. Stems wrapped with leather add texture and warmth.

Impressive in scale at 5 feet high by 4 feet wide, the piece makes its presence known but with grace: a statement and a whisper.

Andreea Avram Rusu’s Botanica Chandelier was Photographed in the Wexler Gallery Booth at Salon Art + Design 2021.