By Erika Calesini

The daughter of a blacksmith and a former fashion designer, Erika Calesini transforms iron, rubber, and other recycled industrial materials into found object sculptures. A recurring motif in her work is the bicycle, which she considers a timeless symbol of freedom and physical evidence that lightness and circularity can coexist. The artist disassembles and reassembles abandoned bikes and their component parts, giving them new lives as lamps, furniture, canvases, and other sculptural forms.