Cut & Paste
Dutch designer Kiki van Eijk’s fantastical art-slash-design objects
A curious collection of improbable objects, “Cut & Paste” is the brainchild of the incredibly talented Kiki van Eijk. The project, currently on view at Secondome Design Gallery in Rome, marries disparate elements of material, color, finish and form as a celebration of “designing by making.”
Working with Secondome gallerist Claudia Pignatale, van Eijk labored for a year in development, producing hundreds of sketches and several models before arriving at the final collection of seven works. The objects—more totemic stories really—bear the influence of contemporaries such as Studio Job and legendary figures such as Ettore Sottsass. Somehow unmistakably Dutch in origin, “Cut & Paste” is also the result of a singular personality; van Eijk’s fondness for materials, layering and craft shows in the work.
The show newly confirms designers’ ongoing unwillingness to retreat to the safer ground that treats function and form as intrinsically connected. The recent economic crisis brought with it the possibility that design could become mired in a new era of false modesty, curtailing the wonderful gains that have been made in the past decade. “Cut & Paste” proves that an experimental, poetic and altogether personal design impetus is here to stay.
via Dezeen