Step Two
7 Nov - 18 Dec 2003
9 designers and artists step out of the academic hothouse of
The Royal College of Art into the Aram Gallery.
THE EXHIBITION INCLUDES WORK BY
Asuka Kawabata
Assa Ashuach
Debbie Lawson
Joohee Lee
Dominic Mcclausland
Carmel Mcelroy
Marloes Ten Bohmer
Peter Traag
Donna Wilson
Step two presents recent graduates from 2003 Design Products and Textiles & Fashion courses and one artist from the Fine Art School exploring new ideas about efficiency, flexibility and presence of objects, through furniture, footwear, carpets, lighting and bookshelf products.
Playing on recognizable typologies, Lawson’s Nest of tables, Ashuach’s corner of a table system, Wilson’s felt doilies rugs, Kawabata’s book form storage and book bound tablecloths and Mcclausland’s 2 degree crooked rustic table exposes their open-minded manipulation of traditional forms. The openness and search for new forms is also evident in Traag’s new upholstery technique and Ten Bohmer’s tufted carpet fashion photography and hi-tech shoes, as they react to the technological opportunities they discovered.
The work in the show is united in the use of repeated elements brought together into new configurations, and meanings, or in the use of variations on recognizable and in some cases traditional forms in multiples and transformations.
Apart from the particular design interest in each work, the pieces show a keen engagement with the sculptural presence of the objects in the space they inhabit, and reflect the designers and artist’s interests in the contemporary explorations of the borders of design and fine art.
Curator: Daniel Charny
Gallery Director: Zeev Aram
