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Kimy Gringoire translates love into 'Big Lovecables' piercing the MASA gallery
Designer Kimy Gringoire at MASA art gallery’s Project Room in Mexico, showcasing her solo exhibition
Image: Roberta Cornew Nuñez
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Kimy Gringoire translates love into 'Big Lovecables' piercing the MASA gallery

The South Korea-born Belgian designer's solo show in Mexico featured jewellery-inspired installations and lighting designs in steel and bronze, with heart-shaped cross sections.

by Bansari Paghdar
Published on : Jan 01, 2025

Jewellery, whether used for marking new beginnings or upholding old traditions, are emblems or symbols of promise, hope and love. Embodying the overarching theme of love through enlarged pieces of jewellery is Belgian designer and artist Kimy Gringoire's solo exhibition, Big Lovecables. The exhibition takes over the Project Room of the Mexico-based MASA art gallery, which was founded by professionals from varied backgrounds including art, design and architecture. Big Lovecables stays true to MASA's vision to encourage discourse on materiality and culture. Embellishing the exhibition space in gold and silver, the collection gets its name from Gringoire's Love Cables jewellery design series (2022), introduced soon after she established her brand, driven by a newfound sense of adoration that grew from starting her family.

Born in South Korea, Gringoire grew up in Belgium, where she studied communications and started travelling the world. Fascinated by the designs, colours, materials and forms of everyday things, her jewellery designs are informed by her travels and connections with people of various creative disciplines such as photography, graphic design, modelling and writing.

On view from October 30 - December 14, 2024, the design exhibition in Mexico City features art installations and lights, made with careful and detailed craftsmanship to achieve sculptural design forms inspired by jewellery, all featuring the graphic heart motif. "These works are handcrafted by skilled Mexican artisans, who cut, weld and hammer each piece with precision," the press release states. All the designs in the collection are crafted from steel, featuring a heart-shaped cross-section that is expertly bent and polished to perfection.

The Big Flow floor lamp emerges from the floor in a majestic arc, resembling half of a heart in elevation. The Big Flow seating installation sits as a sculpture on the floor and completes an arc, facilitating a smooth surface to rest on when required. The Big Flow two-piece wall installation has two identical elements, as the name suggests, protruding from the wall in an arched manner. The Big Flow ceiling-to-wall installation connects two planes of a space, giving the impression of a shiny metal pipe running through spaces in a building. With this collection, the lighting designer also introduces the Small Flow lamp design ideal for study desks and office spaces.

Big Lovecables also displays other sand-cast bronze lighting designs apart from the collection, such as the OTAGEP Earring Light, a wall-mounted light approximately 2.5 metres long, hanging like an earring from a piercing on the wall. The ends of the two asymmetrically designed and hung elements exhibit a gentle glow that illuminates the space with warmth and comfort. The RIOLOVE Grande Pending emerges from and drops on the wall in a sleek, vertical manner, highlighting the heart-shaped cross-section through a tapered end that marks a heart on the floor upon being lit.

The narrative of love is a constant in the pieces as Gringoire fuses traditional artisanal skills with contemporary design interpretations. While the designs are complete independently, they also allow the users to combine and place them thoughtfully in a space, where they thrive off of each other's presence. The Big Lovecables exhibition conveys exactly that, showcasing the ability of the individual pieces to come together to create a warm, loving and inviting ambience.

Kimy Gringoire's 'Big Lovecables' was on view from October 30 - December 14, 2024, at the Project Room of the MASA gallery in Mexico City, Mexico.

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