I am an artist-researcher based in Providence, Rhode Island. My work is situated somewhere between a bookshelf and a pond, between order and disorder, between knowing and unlearning. In my creative process, I actively seeks becoming, and the metamorphosis of perception as a way to both reimagine knowledge systems and communicate understanding. My method of research is informed by watchfulness, where chance encounters, non-linearity, randomness, and associations are followed with trust.

I graduated with a MA in Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies from the Rhode Island School of Design and an online MS in Biomimicry from Arizona State University in 2021. My thesis at RISD, A Pond Becomes a Forest, explored how to construct a new mental model of perceiving the natural world by questioning how we acquire knowledge of the Earth, categorization, close observation of life cycles, and habitat creation. In an effort to share the dynamic nature of this exploration, I continue to evolve a documentation practice that reflects the deconstruction of thought in motion. I am still writing, hoping to publish a book in the near future.

Since graduating, I have been cultivating an understanding of how to combine art with ecological restoration to give back to the web of life and create the propensity for degraded ecosystems to heal with a focus on constructed wetlands made of natural materials. During this process, I has been identifying and learning from other artists, particularly women who are eco or environmental artists, doing similar work to what I hope to one day grow into.


Email: aionescu@alumni.risd.edu