Chromatic variations
A color spectacle like no other: Under the title “Chromatic Sequences”, the London branch of Parisian design gallery Kreo presents works by the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius. The show is deliberately designed as a supplement to Jongerius’s “Breathing Color” installation, which is on display at the London Design Museum for the same period.
Within its rooms, the Galerie Kreo presents a whole series of creations by the designer from the last few years, whereby – as in the London Design Museum – the main focus is on the approach to color in the work of Hella Jongerius. This particular area of interest for the designer is clearly evident in the “Tile” side table: A tabletop covered with tiles serves as an area of experimentation for the interplay between ceramic and color. At the same time, Jongerius applies colored glazes to the imbued fragments and thus creates new color effects – a technique she derived from early oil painting and which enables her to achieve a wide variety of nuances with a limited selection of pigments. The designer only ever covers part of the tiles with the relevant glaze so that the tone of the fragment and the color tone produced with the glaze are juxtaposed.
Hella Jongerius pursues a similar approach, albeit one that produces an entirely different effect, in “Knots & Beads Curtain”, which she originally designed for the “Delegates Lounge” of the United Nations in New York and which the Galerie Kreo now offers for sale in small batches. This wall hanging features hand-molded ceramic balls, which are knotted onto cotton cords. The closer the hanging gets to the floor, the denser the sequence of balls arranged one after the other, whereby the overall impression is nevertheless still determined by a very artisan-like irregularity. The effect is enhanced by the fact that half of the ceramic balls are covered with a reflective glaze, whilst the others appear unglazed and therefore matt.
Other objects are also testament to how finely balanced the effect of color always is in the work of Hella Jongerius, for example with the “Artificial Vases”, in which she combines pink glass with various materials and pastel shades. With the “Dragonfly” coffee table, she places colored and transparent glass over reflecting aluminum, while with “Turtle”, different colored resin is applied in layers like a layer-cake.
The Hella Jongerius exhibition at the Galerie Kreo ends on September 23, 2017, one day before the end of the show at the London Design Museum.
Hella Jongerius - Chromatic Sequences
Galerie Kreo
June 28 2017 - September 23 2017
14A, Hay Hill
WIJ 8NZ London
