Hues reflect various finishes depending on the materials applied. Dark teal shines differently from thread on fabrics and paint on wood. Walking into the paint-splattered restaurant Pracownia by Polish designer Karina Wiciak for Wamhouse or witnessing Stellar Works’ performance of painting on ceramic tableware revives the itch for acrylics and oils. Let’s talk paint.
Refashioning Acrylic
Japanese-based designer Emmanuelle Moureaux entitled her 2015 installation “dance” for Italian fashion brand FURLA, comprised of colorful mobiles dangling from the ceiling. These colors revisit her 2009 “acrylic × komono” series and her Shibafu table, containing 56 slender colored acrylic sticks connected to a piece of transparent acrylic.
Alternatively, acrylic sees new light with the Grain Chair by Yuki Yoshikawa, Japanese designer and co-founder of NANASHI products. Launched at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2015, the designer hand-painted onto Japanese kalopanax wood using acrylic gouache. After a coating of gouache, he sanded down and repainted. This process was repeated several times until the result highlighted the wood’s unique, organic patterns.
https://www.emmanuellemoureaux.com/100-colors-dance/
Paint Is Paint Is Paint
This year, Eight designers revamped Tolix’s iconic metal Chaise A for the company’s 80th anniversary. Swiss-French designer Julie Richoz, the youngest participant, hand-painted onto the metal frame. The bright palette of colors she chose brings the piece to life. Designer Julien Ceder, however, went festive with a splash of yellow paint. The deep yellow paint links to the champagne brand Veuve Cliquot’s labeling heritage; the brand began using this exact color in 1877.
No Need to Paint, to Paint
Studio Glithero works with sensitive chemicals to recreate colors on their vases and tiles. After treating the material, “the objects are then exposed under ultraviolet light, which develops a photogram of the specimen in intense Prussian blue,” Glithero co-founder and British designer Tim Robinson told ArchiExpo. Once the vases are rinsed in a water-based solution to undergo the washing process seen in the video, they are then painted with a “light-sensitive emulsion not included in the film. This emulsion is not visible to the eye and turns blue as soon as it is in contact with UV light.”
Color up Awareness
Vitra donated the iconic Eames Elephants to designjunction 2015’s charity project A Child’s Dream. The project supports Teddy’s Wish, a financial aid to research into Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Twenty-one world-renowned designers and architects painted, patterned and accessorized them for the installation, under the tag “They say ‘elephants never forget’. Nor do bereaved parents.”
One elephant stood on a skateboard, painted like a tiger. “I had two young designers help me who were 9 & 6 years old and my dog Ella,” Terence Woodgate, from lighting brand Terence Woodgate, told ArchiExpo. Woodgate used the “kind of aerosols that kids use for graffiti.”
