Virtual Exhibition… Glamour and Geometry
David Parker, Fantail Earrings – Silver & Oynx, 2016, sterling silver, oynx, 25 x 10 mm, photography: courtesy of e.g.etal, a stockist of David Parker's work
Glamour and Geometry
Words by Caitlin Eyre
Bursting onto the world stage during the modernism, hedonism and glamour of the roaring 1920s, Art Deco blended tradition and progress to create a global design movement that quickly shaped and influenced all areas of art and design.[i] Set between the horrors of World War I (1914-1918), the Great Depression of the 1930s and the catastrophe of World War II (1939-1945), Art Deco was an optimistic movement that embraced pleasure, glamour, luxury and escapism while also celebrating the futuristic advancements of an increasingly modern, mechanized world.[ii] To capture the essence of this optimism, designers paired exotic and luxury materials, sumptuous detailing, elegant ornamentation and exquisite craftsmanship with advancements in technology, fabrication and manufacture, archaeological discoveries, the bold geometry of streamlined architecture and the new visual language of the emerging Modern Art movements.[iii] As a global movement informed by diverse eclectic influences, Art Deco’s strength came from its “willingness to embrace the duality of tradition and modernity, marrying luxury and function in a versatile way” across the fields of art, design, fashion, architecture and furniture.[iv] The enduring influence of this design movement is explored in the artworks of contemporary Australian artists and designers ILANEL (VIC), David Parker (VIC/USA), Lost Profile Studio (VIC), Susan Frost (SA) and Gray Hawk (SA).
ILANEL, Deco Chandelier, 2015, spun aluminium ceiling base, brass suspension cables, mild steel wireframes, UV printed film, electrical components, 13 metre drop length, shades varying 600 x 800 mm and 1000 x 600 mm, photographer: Ivan Lee
ILANEL
ILANEL is a Melbourne-based creative studio that designs decorative lighting ranging from bespoke commissions for high-end residential projects to large scale commercial and hospitality installations. The studio was established in 2010 by multidisciplinary designer Ilan El, a former architect who is passionate about experiential lighting. The Deco Chandelier (2015) was created for Melbourne’s Royal Bank Chambers building, located on Collins Street. Built in 1941, the building’s grand foyer interior deftly illustrates the transition from “the ornate pre-war style of banks towards the streamlined modernism” that occurred during this pivotal period.[v] Large-scale Art Deco lighting symbolised the overarching feeling of prosperity, optimism, luxury and modernity of the 1920s and often served as the focal point of the grand entryways of commercial and municipal structures in the decades to follow, despite the hardship of the Great Depression.
Inspired by Art Deco design sensibilities and created using contemporary fabrication techniques, the Deco Chandelier was designed to respond to the heritage setting of the building’s imposing marble-clad foyer, which features a grand staircase and original period fixtures.[vi] The thirteen-metre tall chandelier dominates the void at the centre of the spiralling staircase in a cascade of diamonds, circles, rectangles and chevrons that reflect the symmetrical and geometrical aesthetics of Art Deco.[vii] Instead of traditional stained glass, the chandelier’s thirteen light shades were crafted using a clear film imprinted with repetitive patterns that were tinted green to mimic the effects of glass and layered to produce a suitably textured finish.[viii] Throughout the 1920s, Art Deco designers looked globally to the arts, crafts and designs of Africa, Asia and Latin America, with the archaeological discoveries of the period.[ix] The colours, patterns and motifs featured on the chandelier are ILANEL’s tribute to Art Deco’s eclectic global influences and particularly reference stylised elements from Egyptian and Japanese design.
While Art Deco is widely celebrated for having drawn its distinctive style from an eclectic and global range of influences, from a contemporary perspective this should encourage retrospective consideration and interrogation. As Art Deco is pastiche of styles and influences, it must be acknowledged that Western designers often appropriated the symbols and motifs of Asian, African and Latin American people and culture in the creation of their ‘modern’ designs. This imagery was primarily prized for its exoticism, novelty and aesthetics, with designs that ostensibly had significant cultural meaning and value often being simplified, used out of context and becoming purely ornamental under Art Deco.[x] Given that at the time Art Deco designs may have been many Western people’s first and perhaps only interactions with the art of other cultures, Art Deco designers were disproportionately influential in shaping public perceptions of non-Western people and culture. Within the greater history of art and design, the issue of appropriation in Art Deco is undeniably deserving of a dedicated and focused analysis in its own right.
David Parker, Radiant Deco Ring, 2015, 18ct yellow gold, Ceylon sapphire, white diamonds, centre stone approx. 11 x 7 mm, photograph courtesy of e.g.etal, a stockist of David Parker's work
David Parker, Empire State Drop Earrings – Green Agate, 2016, sterling silver, agate, 50 x 10 mm, photography: courtesy of e.g.etal, a stockist of David Parker's work
DAVID PARKER
Jeweller and designer David Parker creates elegant contemporary jewellery that is heavily influenced by the aesthetics of Art Deco architecture and Modern sculpture. Largely focused on wedding and engagement rings, Parker’s designs often feature Art Deco elements such as sweeping curves, bold lines, clean edges and luminous classically cut gemstones.[xi] In keeping with the Art Deco style, Parker’s ring collections often incorporates a number of geometric shapes in a single piece, with gemstones cut in popular period styles such as asscher, emerald, radiant and carré flanked by rectangular baguette accent stones. These traditionally cut gemstones are often paired with a modern setting to offer a contemporary interpretation of the style. While period taper, bar, step and four prong settings feature prominently in Parker’s work, the modern tension setting is a particularly characteristic feature of his practice. “I see my work as an interpretation of art deco and modern influences,” Parker says. “I feel it's important to embrace new design and to be relevant to my own time and place.”
Originally from regional Victoria and currently based in the United States, Parker has drawn particular inspiration from his surroundings in Chicago, which is home to some of the world’s most well-preserved Art Deco buildings. Set in the heart of the city’s financial district, La Salle Street and Michigan Avenue are lined with iconic skyscrapers and municipal buildings that reflect the streamlined forms and opulent luxury of the period. The bold designs of the La Salle (2016) and Michigan Avenue Rings (2015) are a tribute to this architecture and feature extravagant gemstones in period tapered and stepped geometric settings that echo the city’s vast skyline.[xii] The Radiant Deco Ring serves as a homage to the elegance and symmetry of the Art Deco aesthetic and features a bold walled profile that is reminiscent of the popular Art Deco motif of a sunburst.[xiii]
In celebration of the National Gallery of Australia’s display of Cartier: The Exhibition in 2018, Parker was invited to create a limited edition jewellery collection for the NGA gallery store. The Deco Collection features a series of sterling silver earrings, neckpieces and cufflinks that incorporate the bold geometric shapes and clean lines of Art Deco architecture and particularly references New York City’s famed Empire State Building. Many of the pieces feature semi-precious stones in colours that were popular during the era, such as black onyx, green jade and green amethyst. Designed to pay tribute to the innovative aesthetic shifts that occurred in the realms of fashion, jewellery, art and architecture during the period, the collection also serves to reference Art Deco as “the incubator and inspiration of contemporary style(s)”.[xiv]
Lost Profile Studio, Distance Pendant, 2018, brass, acrylic, LED, 100 x 40 x 900 mm, photographer: Christine Francis
LOST PROFILE
Launched in 2017 by Melbourne-based artist and designer Oliver Wilcox, Lost Profile Studio creates a restrained collection of contemporary Art Deco, Brutalist and industrial-inspired light fixtures. Growing up, Wilcox regularly visited family in New Zealand and would often make day trips to the city of Napier on the North Island. Napier was razed by an earthquake in 1931 and famously rebuilt, with 111 new buildings constructed between 1931 and 1933, mostly in the Art Deco style. The pastel-coloured Art Deco buildings that line the city’s streets have given Napier the distinction of having the highest concentration of such buildings in the Southern Hemisphere.[xv] “This is my earliest memory of experiencing Art Deco architecture,” Wilcox says. “Marvelling at the modern curves and lines, the understated elegance, the futuristic ideas being explored.” Since then, Wilcox has continued to be inspired by Art Deco architecture in cities around the world, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Melbourne.
The Distance (2018) range of lighting takes its cues from vertebrate anatomy, Art Deco architecture, 1920s bankers’ lamps, futurist design and neo-noir cinema such as Metropolis (1927) and Blade Runner (1982).[xvi] The portrayal of skyscrapers and modern architecture in these films is particularly interesting to Wilcox, who describes the impressive scale of such buildings as evoking a sense of awe in the individual “as being a very small part of a big, futurist machine”. These influences have lent the Distance range the appearance of miniature futuristic skyscrapers for the home that express this sense of awe and optimism for the future on a smaller scale.
Blending new technology with a time-tested visual language, the Distance range features a sleek brass frame encasing a bright shaft of light that stretches skyward. One can easily imagine a bustling nighttime metropolis dominated by these towering, brightly lit forms and the tiny urban inhabitants who dwell within. Consisting of a pendant light, wall sconce, table lamp and floor lamp, the range features brass surfaces that are designed to patina attractively with age. While Art Deco has undoubtedly given Wilcox strong aesthetic cues, his experiences of Art Deco architecture and the way that these buildings have aged have also underscored the importance of the longevity and integrity of design over time. “There is a real beauty in seeing such a futuristic vision in states of neglect and decay,” Wilcox says. “I try to design light fixtures…with the intention for them to still look beautiful in 100 years when they are aged and worn.”
Susan Frost, Rise, 2020, wheel thrown porcelain, relief detail, 170 x 10 mm, photographer: Michael Haines
Susan Frost, Ascend, 2020, wheel thrown porcelain, relief detail, 220 x 115 mm, photographer: Michael Haines
SUSAN FROST
South Australian ceramic artist and JamFactory Ceramics Studio Public Program Manager Susan Frost uses the evocative properties of colourful glazes to highlight the sculptural quality of her minimalist forms.[xvii] Recently, Frost has been influenced by the ambitious ornamental schemes that decorate the exteriors and interiors of Art Deco buildings. She embarked on a research trip to New York (partially funded by Arts South Australia) where she studied the city’s key Art Deco era buildings and their pattern-rich interiors, as well as closely examining period objects held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. “I am interested in how decorative elements were integrated into the design – from epic murals and bespoke floor coverings to the smallest details on door knobs, light sconces and lift button surrounds,” says Frost. “Objects from this period are exquisite miniatures echoing the same design principles” as the buildings of the era. By viewing the buildings as oversized objects, Frost was able to examine their form and the way that diverse decorative elements were combined in order to achieve a successful and visually striking whole.
In response to her research, Frost has created a series of porcelain vessels etched with minimalist surface decorations finished with soft colourful satin matte and gloss glazes. After throwing her pieces on a pottery wheel, trimming and refining the shape, Frost maps out her chosen designs onto the surfaces of her pots with a pencil using precisely measured guidelines. The pattern is meticulously placed to ensure it flows continuously around the form. The decoration process is one of removal rather than addition, with Frost laying tape over the drawn lines and sponging away the exposed clay, masking further sections with tape as she progresses in order to create different depths within the pattern. The pieces are fired to 1285ºC to strengthen and vitrify the porcelain, the thinner areas where the clay has been sponged away causing the porcelain’s translucency to become even more pronounced. During the second firing after the pieces have been glazed, the melting glaze breaks on the edges of the decoration and pools in its recesses, creating tonal contrasts within the design.
The stepped patterns in her artworks reference Art Deco architects’ use of ancient Mayan structures such as the ziggurat in designing skyscrapers such as the Rockefeller Centre and Empire State Building, while the radial patterns of fans, chevrons and sunbursts are inspired by the motifs that adorn the entrances of the Stella and Walker Towers. The use of these more complex shapes marks a distinct departure from the simple vertical lines and squares of Frost’s previous artworks. Beyond Art Deco, Frost’s repetitious shapes and minimalist colours are also heavily influenced by the Modernist hard edge, colour field and Minimalist painters such as Kenneth Noland (1924-2010) and Frank Stella (1936-present).
Gray Hawk, Ruhlmann Bed, c. 2014, palisander, stainless steel, 1500 x 2260 mm, photographer: Grant Hancock
GRAY HAWK
Gray Hawk is a South Australian designer and maker of bespoke timber furniture whose creative passion is influenced by a deep reverence for nature, sacred geometry and the quest to create impeccable functional objects. Hailing from a long line of artisans, including shipbuilders and guilders, Hawk is renowned for his meticulous attention to detail and the artistry of his furniture designs. With a career spanning more than forty years, Hawk has been particularly influenced by the style and aesthetics of Art Deco. “I recognise it as being a bold transition into the industrialised 20th century, which embraces reciprocal geometry and refined form,” says Hawk.[xviii] His work often references the rich colours, bold geometric lines and luxurious high quality materials of Art Deco furniture design while also honouring the raw beauty of nature by utilising locally and ethically sourced high quality timbers. Available in a number of richly hued timbers, including redgum, ebony and rosewood, the Ascension Chair (2012) is a complex, three-dimensional sculpture that harmoniously cradles the human body within its carved ergonomic form. The numerous sweeping, curved lines of the angel wing backrest are inspired by the elegance and stylized repetition of forms that are synonymous with Art Deco sensibilities.
In the creation of his most recent pieces, Hawk has been greatly influenced by the legacy of French furniture designer and interior decorator Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879-1933). One of the most central figures in the Art Deco movement, Ruhlmann designed sleek, elegant timber furniture that was highlighted by gentle curves, fine craftsmanship and the use of rare, exotic materials. Widely celebrated for its aesthetic refinement and impeccable construction, Ruhlmann’s furniture became a symbol of the luxury and modernity of the Art Deco movement.[xix] In a tribute to the designer, Hawk has isolated and transformed Ruhlmann’s signature elegantly tapered fuseau furniture leg and incorporated the design in the bedposts featured on the Ruhlmann Bed (c.2014). Crafted from rosewood, ebony and figured maple capped with stainless steel fixings, the bedposts celebrate Ruhlmann’s harmonious dynamic of geometric and organic form.
AN ENDURING LEGACY
The enormous commercial success and widespread popularity of Art Deco worldwide ensured that the style would endure in various forms well into the 1930s. In addition to the way that the style captured the bright optimism and modern spirit of the period, Art Deco was popular largely due to its egalitarian aim of encouraging the design and manufacture of attractive, considered and high quality objects that were affordable and accessible to a large portion of society, not merely the elite and wealthy few. With the advent of the machine age and advancements in large-scale manufacturing, Art Deco designers were able to infuse mass-produced functional objects with thoughtful and aesthetically pleasing artistic touches, while also ensuring the affordability and sustainability of once time-consuming and expensive high-quality craftsmanship.[xx] The popularity of Art Deco began to diminish with the hardship of the Great Depression of the early 1930s and was extinguished by the wartime need for austerity and rationing in the 1940s. However, the influence of Art Deco has continued well into the centenary of its conception, with the legacy of this great movement alive and well in the minds and designs of today’s contemporary artists and designers.
susanfrostceramics.com
lostprofile.net
davidparkerjewellery.com.au
hawkdesign.com.au
www.ilanel.com
[i] Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Art Deco’, 2020, https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/art-deco, accessed 25 May 2020
[ii] Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Art Deco’, 2020, https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/art-deco, accessed 25 May 2020; Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Art Deco in the Home’, 2020, www.vam.ac.uk/articles/art-deco-in-the-home, accessed 25 May 2020
[iii] Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Art Deco’, 2020, https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/art-deco, accessed 25 May 2020; Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Art Deco in the Home’, 2020, www.vam.ac.uk/articles/art-deco-in-the-home, accessed 25 May 2020
[iv] Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘An Introduction to Art Deco’, 2020, https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/an-introduction-to-art-deco, accessed 25 May 2020
[v1] Melbourne Heritage Action, ‘Interiors’, 2019, www.melbourneheritage.org.au/current-campaigns/interiors/, accessed 8 June 2020
[vi] Melbourne Heritage Action, ‘Interiors’, 2019, www.melbourneheritage.org.au/current-campaigns/interiors/, accessed 8 June 2020
[vii] ILANEL Design Studio, ‘Royal Chambers Bank, Melbourne’, 2020, www.ilanel.com/rbc-melbourne, accessed 1 June 2020; Clare Gilligan, ‘Makers Lane: The Perfect Middlemen’, 2015, www.merchantandmakers.com/makers-lane-australia/, accessed 1 June 2020
[viii] Clare Gilligan, ‘Makers Lane: The Perfect Middlemen’, 2015, www.merchantandmakers.com/makers-lane-australia/, accessed 1 June 2020
[ix] Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Art Deco’s Global Influences’, 2020, www.vam.ac.uk/articles/art-deco-global-influences, accessed 6 June 2020
[x] Tiffany Chain, 2015, ‘Art Deco: The Aesthetics of Appropriation’, https://thefemalegaze.org/2015/08/16/art-deco-the-aesthetic-of-appropriation/, accessed 4 August 2020
[xi] David Parker, ‘About’, 2019, www.davidparkerjewellery.com.au/about, accessed 15 June 2020
[xii] David Parker, ‘La Salle Ring’, 2019, www.davidparkerjewellery.com.au/product-page/lasalle-ring, accessed 15 June 2020
[xiii] David Parker, ‘Radiant Deco Ring’, 2019, www.davidparkerjewellery.com.au/product-page/radiant-deco-ring, accessed 15 June 2020
[xiv] David Parker, ‘NGA Deco Collection’, 2019, www.davidparkerjewellery.com.au/nga-deco-collection, accessed 15 June 2020
[xv] Jennifer Nalewicki, ‘How an Earthquake Turned This New Zealand Town into the Art Deco Capital of the World’, 2016, www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/earthquake-helped-turn-city-art-deco-capital-world-180958081/, accessed 11 June 2020; Tourism New Zealand, ‘Napier – New Zealand’s Art Deco Capital’, 2018, www.media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/napier-new-zealands-art-deco-capital/, accessed 11 June 2020
[xvi] Lost Profile, ‘Pendant', 2020, www.lostprofile.net/pendant, accessed 10 June 2020
[xvii] Susan Frost, ‘About’, 2020, www.susanfrostceramics.com/about, accessed 27 June 2020
[xviii] Gray Hawk, ‘Ruhlmann Bed Ends – Sleep Portal’, 2020, www.hawkdesign.com.au/bespoke-objects/ruhlmann-bed-ends-sleep-portal/, accessed 1 June 2020
[xix] Pollaro Custom Furniture Inc, ’Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann’, 2020, www.ruhlmann.info/e-j-ruhlmann/, accessed 1 June 2020
[xx] The Art Story Foundation, ‘Art Deco’, 2020, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/art-deco/, accessed 5 August 2020