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“Folklore & Fairytales: The Fantastical World of Andrea Dezsö” opens Saturday, May 2, at The Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art.
The exhibit offers visitors a glimpse into Dezsö’s expansive imagination with blown glass sculpture, prints, vinyl wall installations, tunnel books, ceramic dinnerware, and embroidery.
What: “Folklore & Fairytales: The Fantastical World of Andrea Dezsö”
Where: The Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art at Florida Southern College, 800 E. Palmetto St.
When: Saturday, May 2 through Sunday, September 6, 2026 – museum hours
Admission: Free
Dezsö’s work is influenced by her childhood in Transylvania, Romania, and her travels around the world.
“One of the really interesting things about Andrea Dezsö’s work is how it taps into a lot of really deep-seated myths and folklores that various cultures have,” said Daryl Ward, executive director at The AGB. “And she’s taken those myths that came from her own upbringing in Romania, and she’s translated them through her different mediums of art.”
Despite the variety in “Folklore & Fairytales,” The AGB’s exhibit showcases only a portion of the many techniques and materials employed by the artist — Dezsö chooses the medium that best fits the idea or concept that she is trying to convey.
The exhibit includes “You Have Many Friends,” a lithograph print of stylized faces, insects, and wildlife that Dezsö made in Hawaii. Using a very hard crayon, she drew the image on a lithograph stone, originally mined in Germany during the 19th century. Only 10 copies were printed.
Above that hangs “Land of Fairy Tales,” a lithograph that Dezsö made in China. It incorporates Chinese symbols of life and prosperity, and master Chinese printmakers made only 42 copies.
Once a lithograph is printed, the design is wiped from the stone so that it can’t be reproduced. Dezsö said the stones are used over and over, until they become too thin and could crack.
Dezsö has been teaching for 26 years, including the last five years in the illustration department at the Rhode Island School of Design. She said that being a professor allows her to pursue opportunities and travel, sometimes as a teaching fellow or artist in residence
Dezsö said the places she visits and the people she meets, local and indigenous artists and artisans, influence her work — sometimes that influence appears when she incorporates cultural elements into a piece, and other times she learns a new technique.
Lately, Dezsö has been experimenting with foraging her own natural pigment to use in her work. While on sabbatical in Australia, she learned how to look for ochres, natural clay earth pigments, with an indigenous artist. Dezsö has used the same technique on beaches in Maine and in Massachusetts.
Dezsö said that she left Transylvania at 22. She earned her Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Moholy Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, Hungary. Her work is permanently installed in several New York City subway stations, the United States Embassy in Bucharest, Romania, and at Borough of Manhattan Community College’s World Trade Center location, part of the the City University of New York system.
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