Exploring the intersections of Art and Design is an ongoing investigation at Pinakistudios. Like in a kitchen or a laboratory, textiles, surfaces and objects are developed and exhibited to inspire projects, commissions and collaborations.
Questions & Answers
Traditionally, designers create solutions and artists question. Research balances these opposites, resulting in a wellspring of new applications, techniques and finishes. Studied materials might become a vessel, a medium, or an element within another design.
Reinvention, objects within objects, subversion: things of beauty are shot through with sly humour.
The ephemeral
Surfaces come to life through distortion; highly abrasive techniques yield delicate finishes.
The process and materials are both indicative of time’s elusive passage. De-forming, un-forming and re-forming fabrics: distorting in order to spur a cycle of re-creation. Distorting weaves by displacing interwoven structures, fading patterns, re-scaling existing patterns. Similarly, materials are also reinvented by folding, pleating and manipulation techniques.
Thus rediscovered, these surfaces emanate sensuality, invite a touch, a tactile inquiry, a nod to memory.
Images 4, 5 & 6: Collaboration with Andere Monjo
Images 7, 8 & 9: Michele Panzeri
Context
Contexts and spaces help us to interpret textiles, surfaces and objects in a multitude of ways. Textiles can enrich a wide range of physical and spatial contexts to a theatrical effect.
Drawing the eye across lush scenes, the pieces may relate to the passage of time, provide the focal point of a dramatic landscape or distil elements of fine art in decorative or unexpected settings.
Souvenirs Entomologiques
"What were they doing there all these feverish workers? They were making clearance of death on behalf of life. Transcendence alchemists they were transforming that horrible putridity into a living inoffensive product".
Jean-Henri Fabre, 1878
A collection of enchanting creatures made by Arantza Vilas jitter, fumble and hover in the window display of b Store (Saville Row, London).
They give passers-by a glimpse into the intricate and beautiful nature of the insect species as well as the dark and sinister. A cycle made up of Crisis, Transient and Transcendence phases is explored through creatures displaying whimsical, quirky and extraordinary personalities. Feathers, fish bones, lobster and crab shells are combined with delicately pleated, distressed and embellished fabrics which look familiar yet peculiar - these creatures belong to another world or place which has perhaps borrowed or evolved from the insect world we know. Their surfaces tell a troubled history - closer inspection reveals to us that they have already been subjected to abrasive and brutal techniques and the rust that remains makes us wonder if they are simply no more than cantankerous old souls harmlessly hanging on for one last contest. The system itself comprises an army of Andrea Monjo and Luciana Mendes Haddad, Meredith Whitthingham, Ade from AStudio, Jeff Lye and Gemma Lloyd and without this team the cycle would be incomplete.
Text: Gemma Lloyd
Photographs: Michele Panzeri
Editions
Often works can be replicated, produced in multiples or original pieces can be reinterpreted.
There is a dialogue between the one-off and the multiples, pieces produced in series yet individual.
Transcendence - the third part of the series Souvenirs Entomologiques - consisted of nine "wearable creatures" produced as a series but all different.
Images 1 - 4: Clockwork Fish series at Factoria Compostela
Images 5 & 6: Michele Panzeri
Interaction
These objects/products inspire a multitude of uses; each hinting at ever more diverse creative possibilities. Above all, the works are imbued with the tone and scope of the stories they recount, as well as the stories they inspire.
The series Souvenirs Entomologiques also initiated a new exploration into kinetics and the potential of movement. This kind of research is opening up new ways of interacting with the audience in a perpetual cycle.
Photographs: Michele Panzeri
