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American designer Kelly Wearstler, known for imprinting her musings onto ceramic, wood, and stone, among other materials, to build stools, chairs, tables, sofas, and sculptures, recently collaborated with stone, tile and wood brand ARCA to build the Nudo collection. Launched during the recently concluded Art Basel 2022—part of the Miami Art Week—the marble collection comprises the entire range of furniture designated for indoor spaces. The chairs, sofas, ottomans, stools, console, side table, drink table, end table, coffee table, and benches that make up the collection bear semblance to the futuristic and dreamy aesthetic associated with AI designed digital art. Wearstler’s presentation at the Miami Art Week, on view from November 30 to December 4, 2022, marked her debut at the event.
Kelly Wearstler, under her eponymous studio, founded in 1995 and based in Los Angeles, California, operates across various creative disciplines, namely interior design, product design, retail design, and residential design, among others. Wearstler’s Nudo collection—designed especially for Art Basel 2022—serves as a tangible specimen of the designer’s fondness for exploration, in general and material experimentation in particular. “With these designs, I was deeply interested in exploring the possibility of creating a real softness through curvaceous shapes within the fortitude of marble,” shares Wearstler, delineating the idea that guided the creation of the Nudo collection.
The pieces that make up the collection are characterised by knot motifs, intricately shaped out of marble. The result is a series of fluid silhouettes that appear to defy the typically solid nature of stone. Nudo celebrates marble for its allure, and its ability to be chiselled into organically shaped objects that exude an incongruous and atypical softness. High-tech manufacturing techniques were used to shape each piece, which were then finished by hand-carving to produce utilitarian furniture and accessories. The pieces, inspired by the traditional art of weaving and the resultant interwoven texture, make for unique collectable design that can be used as furniture or decorated as sculptures—establishing an intriguing dialogue in both cases.
Wearstler describes theNudo pieces as “a nuanced and sensual interplay of suppleness and strength. The universal craft of weaving is rooted in ancient cultures from across the globe and each piece in Nudo pays homage to that history. Our presentation with Arca is an expression of what binds us together as the world converges in Miami to celebrate art and design.”
The Nudo collection, consisting of 16 furniture pieces and six accessory pieces, explores the beauty of natural stone via an investigation of materiality, colour, and shape. Nudo gives marble sculptural softness by fusing nature, the human touch, and technology in a unique way. With the aid of Arca's cutting-edge craft and production skills, as well as a shared appreciation for natural stone, Wearstler's knotted, rounded, and ribbed forms are combined and materialised into distinctively sized, practical designs.
“Presenting the debut collection from an industry titan like Kelly Wearstler at Art Basel is an important honour for us. There is a very special concept in the designs by Kelly. Were the objects made in other natural stones, it could seem simple, but with the power of marble, they become extraordinary. It’s so incredible to see the uniqueness of marble first-hand, where each block, and each supplemental creation, is truly different but equally stunning,” shares José Fernández, CEO of Arca.
The Nudo collection includes unusual benches with circular and linear forms, curved chairs and benches, a sculptural console, a number of side tables, voluptuous stools, and an array of decorative accessories such as a platter, a bowl, and various vases. Marble blocks from all around the world were used to cut the pieces that make up the collection. A few of them include Pink Marble, Verde Tikal, Calcite Blue, Rainbow Onyx, White Beauty, and Rosso Verona from Asia, and Fior di Bosco, Rosa Valencia, Crema Marfil, Rojo Alicante, and Amarillo Triana from Europe.
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