Samuel Ross x Friedman Benda merge meaning and functionality with ‘Coarse’

A juxtaposition of post-industrial Western culture, modernism, and brutalism brings to fruition works by industrial designer Samuel Ross, constructing a link between body, material, meaning, and memory. Ross’s latest collection, Coarse presented at Friedman Benda gallery is the second solo presentation of the British designer . Renowned for his rigorous conceptual approach to industrial materials, Ross displays his fourth body of work, representing his most layered material exploration to date. The six pieces in this solo exhibition depict communal, generous, and compassionate environments that are about geography, about the body and space, and about the body in space.

Beyond ideas of territory and diaspora, Samuel Ross understands geography to encompass the physical links that bind these elements together, such as time, place, minerals, residue, and erosion. A material's memory can be reawakened through the procedure since gestures are recorded on the body, just like they are on stone or steel. The pieces from the Coarse collection point to this physical association and remind us that both body and material are vessels of memory and meaning. Birth at Dawn and Fire Opens Stone are two pieces from the collection crafted using Nero Africa granite, glass fibre reinforced concrete, fired OSB, fired honey and milk patina, painted steel, and polyurethane. Anaesthesia I and Anaesthesia II are made from glass fibre-reinforced concrete, fired OSB, stainless steel, turmeric, acrylic, acrylic lacquer, and polyurethane. Border is made using fired wenge, planished aluminium, powder-coated steel, and melamine lacquer and Slab is made using Verde Marina granite and painted steel.

These product designs embody a 'two-ness' or duality, owing to the fact that they are grounded in W.E.B. Du Bois' idea of double consciousness: both material and body, both structure and space, both Western and diasporic, both new and passed down, both connected and detached. Each of these items is ambivalent in some way; they are all infused with memory, while also trying to recall their past. Coarse is research that deepens the object's significance without abandoning its purpose. It emphasises the process as a type of ritual, as a form of creation, and as a narrative that encompasses giving—creating a rich and layered narrative landscape.

Ross uses mass, weight, and rawness to make his art stand out in the space. Turmeric, honey, and milk are used as lacquer before industrial materials like burned wood, metal, stone, and marble are heated and further processed. These organic elements, in his opinion, speak of earlier hands, processes, and gestures and carry memory, intentions, and philosophies from the heartland from where they originate.

Key themes that cross contemporary design, craft, architecture, fine art, and cutting-edge technical research are advanced by Friedman Benda. By providing possibilities to advance new relationships within the international design community, the gallery fosters synergy between leading creative thinkers and producers. Friedman Benda is committed to a critical view of design history, making this collaboration with Samuel Ross ideal, as his focus is material investigation and innovation married with incisive explorations of Brutalist and abstract forms and precise execution. Together, they showcase objects that stand at the crossroads of meaning and functionality.

Text by Ria Jha