Aleksandar

Stoicovici

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Aleksandar Stoicovici

Aleksandar Stoicovici is a visual poet whose collages emerge from the tension between language and image. His practice unfolds in unique collections, where fragments of history, myth, and memory are reassembled into new structures. The work moves fluidly across themes while retaining a sensitivity to form and content. What results is a body of work that shows how images, like words, can be dismantled, rearranged, and read differently.
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In the Words of the Artist

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I believe my literary background has influenced me from the very beginning, as I tend to work in series that, to me, resemble poetry chapbooks. When a theme begins to obsess me, I start experimenting and exploring, allowing myself to be guided by the process. I don’t like to linger in the comfort zone, and I try not to repeat myself from one series to the next.

I try to keep things as simple as possible and not overthink too much. I usually go into the studio with a rough idea of what I want to do, but when I start cutting and looking for resources, most of my decisions are made spontaneously.

If I’m working on a more complex series with a clear narrative, I like to research topics related to what I’m working on. I also take notes and make sketches to clarify for myself the possible directions I could explore.

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Over the past ten years, since I began exploring collage, I feel I’ve tried to bring many of my interests into my work, as well as my obsessions and fears. My collage trajectory so far is like a journal, a kind of record of the stages of the bardo that helps me navigate whatever I’m going through. I have explored themes such as personal and collective memory, the fragility and transformations of the body, the power of symbols, the sacred and the profane, as well as the Anthropocene and the challenges we are currently facing as humanity.

I see collage as a way of peeling back layers of reality, of distorting what the naked eye perceives in order to reveal hidden meanings. As a collage artist, one is in the position to tame chaos and shape it into unexpected little universes.

When I work, I often feel as if I were stepping into a room of mirrors, absorbed by reflections while still trying to make sense of what I see. And, in my mind, this coincides with the very idea of freedom.

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I spend a lot of time searching, collecting, and organizing my resources. When I first moved to Germany, I used to go to flea markets, where I was surprised to find family albums forgotten at the bottom of cardboard boxes. I currently have a collection of hundreds of photographs, most of them dating from the early 1900s up until the 1970s. During the pandemic, I managed to digitize part of this collection, and I’m planning to make it available to other collage artists in the future.

I have a friend who runs an antiquarian bookshop, and over time, he has provided me with lots of damaged lithographs, Japanese prints, pieces of manuscripts, and so on. I enjoy working with these materials, placing them in a new context, and giving them new life.

Other than that, I use many public domain materials from the Rijksmuseum, The Met, the New York Public Library, etc. And if I’m looking for a very specific image, I either license stock photos or take my own to work with.

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Speaking strictly of collage art, that would definitely be Jiří Kolář. I discovered his work by accident when I visited an exhibition while on holiday in the Czech Republic. Up until that point, I had already been experimenting with text collages, but I was left speechless by the various techniques and possibilities I saw in his work. Back in 2023, I created a tribute series called Ornithology, which was directly inspired by some of his pieces.

Years later, when I opened my Instagram account, I discovered many amazing artists, some of them already featured in Revue Collé, whom I still follow and admire to this day. On a more general note, the biggest influence on my imagery and approach to art would be the Romanian surrealist poet Gellu Naum.

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I feel that things are moving in a good direction. And by this I mean that collage is gaining more and more visibility. Through social media, I see a lot of interesting projects, ranging from books and catalogues to magazines, contests, and collage collectives all over the world. And of course, I’ve also come across some amazing exhibitions.

I also believe there’s a growing interest from art collectors, especially in artists who are trying to innovate in terms of technique or subject matter.

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About the Artist

Aleksandar Stoicovici is a Romanian-German multidisciplinary artist, born 1988, in Romania. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and European Studies and a Master’s degree in Intercultural Communication from the West University of Timișoara.

A published poet, he is the author of three poetry collections: vineri (2011, Herg Benet Publishers), aleksandar doarme (2012), and Habitat (2025, Art Publishing House). His work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies across the United States, Australia, Germany, Romania, Argentina, Serbia, Slovenia, and Hungary. He has also curated and edited several poetry anthologies. Aleksandar is the co-author of Dunărea Deportaților (Povești de viață din Bărăgan, 1951–1956), a volume of interviews with survivors of the Communist-era deportations in Romania.

As a collage artist, he has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in Germany and Romania. Since 2015, he has been based in southern Germany, combining his role as an art director with his ongoing artistic work.

Instagram | Website

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