#Just Because… PAD London’24
Inspiration can come from anywhere at any time, but one place you can be virtually guaranteed to find it is at the annual PAD London Art & Design Fair in Berkeley Square. We headed there last week and it did not disappoint.
Quality not quantity is key mantra of PAD London. It is not the largest of design shows, but those that do exhibit are carefully selected Galleries & Studios showing one-off pieces of art, design, furniture & sculpture, where the lines between each discipline are constantly blurred.
What you can be sure of is beautiful craftsmanship, incredible attention to detail and a level of exclusivity beyond the reach of most mortals.
We have selected 3 Galleries, from the many that exhibited, to showcase here, the first of which is Objects with Narratives, a Brussels based Gallery which showed off some truly stunning sculptural pieces. At the centre of the stand and the key focal point we saw the contrasting textures of Vladimir Slavov’s bronze lighting installation, set above the asymmetric beauty of Mircea Anghel’s Wood Pico 1.0 Dining Table.
Another highlight on the stand was the understated work of Ben Storms. His Crushed Console Table & Crushed Room Divider both in Belge Noir marble, used contrasts in materiality to great effect.
The second stand that really caught our eye was the Sarah Myerscough Gallery with it’s dark, foreboding backdrop giving a sense of theatre and creating the perfect backdrop for the pieces on show. In particular there were a pair of beautifully crafted console tables, one by the British designer Marc Fish & another by the American designer Christopher Kurtz.
Each console table demonstrated supreme understanding of how to craft the timber into organic forms and in doing so creating a piece of artwork as muc as a functional table. Marc Fish’s Kasumi console combines the beauty of the oak with a bronze & aluminium lacquer, whereas Christopher Kurtz’s Wavelet console celebrates the beauty of a single timber; walnut.
The final stand we wanted to highlight was the Dutch Gallery, Priveekollektie.
In contrast to both Objects with Narratives & Sarah Myerscough Gallery, as well as the general dark backdrop of the PAD exhibition space itself, Priveekollektie opted for a light and airy stand, injecting a bit of a fresh & playful twist which perfectly encapsulated a number of their pieces.
A couple of artists really caught the eye. The first were Amarist, whose mastery of how to bring the most out of marble via intricate sculpting, was demonstrated both in their Fossil Moon mirror and Fossil side table. Only both items the translucent nature of the marble created a lightness not usually associated with such a dense material.
The other artist, who achieved a similar effect of transcending the materials natural characteristics was Reinier Bosch’s melting series of furniture. On these pieces the bronze has been formed into perfect droplets with a fluidity that belies the solidity of the metal itself.
