‘I aim to retell my parents’ stories’: Yinka Ilori, furniture
Ilori’s bright upcycled chairs are designed to be conversation starters. From the batik-printed cottons (known as Dutch wax fabrics) covering the seats that reference his Nigerian roots, to the paint on the legs and frame, each object has a narrative behind it. Take his installation Swimming Pool of Dreams, one of the biggest hits at last year’s London Design Week: six chairs, each inspired by a person he knew as a child from his parents’ Pentecostal church in London, and displayed on Ilori’s floor tiles.
“My parents were really religious,” he says, “and every Sunday a group from the church would get on a coach to Margate and spend the day praying. People believed that if they prayed by the sea, their dreams would come true. We would all look nice and it was a proper outing, with jollof rice and chicken.” These days, he doesn’t go to church as often, but prays “in my own way”.
Each of his chairs illustrates a different subject, from divorce to immigration. A 1950s cafe chair painted orange and given a zigzag print fabric seat represents someone struggling to get pregnant (a hand-painted tile attached to one side of the back on hinges, like a child attached to its mother, symbolises her wish coming true); a “trapped star”, which has a small child’s seat on top, is a reference to people never reaching their full potential.
At the same time, Ilori believes it’s up to people to interpret each piece as they wish. “Some of my chairs are like sculptures, and others are designed to be functional. But I don’t want to put a label on them.” “Storytelling is really powerful; growing up, I always wanted to know more about Nigerian culture. Now I aim to retell my parents’ stories, and stories about my own experiences, in a colourful, thought-provoking way,” he says. “The Dutch wax fabrics look fun and humorous, but have a deeper meaning; everyone in Nigeria knows what each print stands for.” A bird means money has wings and flies where it wants; racing horses signify rivalry between wives.
Ilori still has family in Nigeria (his parents moved to the UK about 30 years ago) and visits at least twice a year. “I taught myself Yoruba so I can chat to my grandmother and grandfather.”
Several of his current projects continue to draw on his heritage. He has been commissioned by the Africa Centre in London to revamp a sofa and a table, and to paint two murals; and he is working on a bathroom for an as-yet-unnamed brand, which will include basins, fabrics and tiles. “I’m trying to redefine African luxury,” he says.
It was while studying for a furniture design degree at London Metropolitan University nine years ago that Ilori first began upcycling chairs. His inspiration was Italian designer Martino Gamper’s 100 Chairs In 100 Days (for which Gamper transformed 100 broken chairs). He has been collecting unwanted furniture he finds on the street ever since.
“I used to sit on the top deck of the bus and then jump off when I spotted one. I’d sometimes end up struggling home with three or four.” These days he also sources from secondhand shops and eBay; he has started collecting sideboards and tables, too.
Each chair takes about three weeks to make, with prices starting at £1,500. Two are currently in museums: one is part of the touring Making Africa exhibition, currently at the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam; the other is in the permanent collection at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.
Ilori runs occasional workshops from his north-east London studio (you bring the chair, he provides the paint, the fabrics and the Fela Kuti afrobeats), and has just started selling A4 prints of his work. So now it’s not just the chairs that will spark a conversation, but what’s on the wall, too.
‘I’d cry in every art school tutorial’: Bethan Laura Wood, furniture
“I like colour,” says Wood, 33, a glorious understatement, considering she’s sporting blue hair, green blusher, pink and yellow eyebrows, and is swathed in a Mexican blanket.
Born in Shropshire, Wood has been making things – from papier-mache hats to balsa wood vans – for as long as she can remember. Diagnosed with dyslexia at sixth-form college, she found she could understand the world through colour more easily than words.
Watching a documentary about the Royal College of Art in London at the age of 16, Wood immediately knew she wanted to study there. Every decision she took from then on was geared towards realising that ambition. After graduating from Brighton University, she took a year out to work on self-initiated projects, funded by work in cafes and bars. Eventually, in 2007, she landed a place at the art school.
“Of course, I freaked out. I would cry in every tutorial because I was overwhelmed,” she says. Her tutors, Dutch designer Jurgen Bey and the Italian Martino Gamper, were her guides.
It’s only recently that her now-signature use of explosive colour has found its way into her designs. They range from her laminate marquetry Moon Rock tables (inspired by craters and resembling highly coloured slices of fossilised rock, pictured here to Wood’s right) to her vivid Guadalupe Daybed and vases, which followed a residency in Mexico City in 2014. “The table was the first time I allowed colour and pattern to have a voice in my work. I wasn’t always comfortable with the way I look being associated with what I do.”
Since then, Wood has created window displays for Hermès, and this year will be artist-in-residence at studio space Room On The Roof, for department store de Bijenkorf in Amsterdam. A few months ago, she won British Land’s Swarovski Emerging Talent Medal. “I’m able to do what I love,” she says. “I don’t think I’d be happy if I was doing anything else.”
‘We try to force mistakes, to see what happens’: Raw Edges, flooring and furniture
Walk into Raw Edges’ studio and the first thing you notice is a neat row of containers, suspended at 45 degrees, filled with brightly coloured dye. Look up and you’ll see dye-soaked wood, arranged by hue into a vertical rainbow. These are the building blocks of the Herringbones and Endgrain collections, two projects that have established the Israeli-born co-founders of Raw Edges – Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay, both 39 – as rising stars.
Herringbones is made from planks of pine and jelutong wood dipped into those angled vats to create overlapping areas of colour; Endgrain comprises blocks of wood that have been saturated in hot dye and arranged with their “end grain” visible, like a butcher’s block. The pair have applied this concept to everything from shelving to benches and armchairs.
Their large London studio gives them space to think. “It means we can experiment,” Mer says. It’s all a long way from Jerusalem, where the two met on their first day at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in 1998. “Shay sat next to me – it was a fascinating lecture with a feminist agenda,” Mer says. “But he wasn’t into it. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be there, and yet how unlucky to have this annoying person next to me.” They are now married with a six-year-old daughter.
On graduating in 2001, they both applied to the Royal College of Art. Without having decided what they would do if only one of them was accepted, they opened each other’s letters: they had both been offered a place. They studied under fellow Israeli Ron Arad, and give him a lot of credit for their success. “Ron encouraged us to explore,” Alkalay says. “He pushed us to make things happen.”
Commissions range from multicoloured floors for Stella McCartney to “Stack”, towering piles of mismatched lacquered wooden drawers, for British furniture brand Established & Sons. “We are always changing things,” Alkalay says. “We even try to force mistakes, just to see what happens. It means we’re on a constant learning curve.”
‘I get envious about facilitating someone else’s vision’: Laura Spring, textiles
“I sometimes joke that the longer I live in Scotland, the brighter my work gets,” says Staffordshire-born textile designer Spring. She moved north of the border to study graphic design at Glasgow School of Art 18 years ago – and never left. “It can be grey and bleak in winter, so I like to embrace colour.” Spring’s punchy prints appear on everything from cushions and lampshades to rugs.
One of her most recent designs is a handwoven flatweave for rug company Floor Story. It’s the result of a project called India Street, supported by the British Council and Creative Scotland, in which a group of designers explored a print archive (the Bombay Sample Book) held at the National Gallery of Scotland, which consists of 200 19th-century pattern books. “Back then, Scotland produced printed cottons which, slightly controversially, were sold back to India. I discovered a tie-dye technique called lehariya, where you twist the fabric so it produces a zigzag motif,” Spring says.
As well as one-off commissioned projects, Spring produces a new collection once a year. Her latest work includes pieces inspired by a zebra’s hide; and also by a form of Finnish skittles known as Milkky.
Spring turned her hand to textile design only six years ago. “When I graduated, I did a placement at Scottish design studio Timorous Beasties, but then went into making costumes, mostly for the Scottish Opera,” she says. “All these designers would come in with lovely drawings and I got a bit envious that I was facilitating someone else’s vision.” Eventually she decided to set up a print studio. She made a 1970s-style canvas suitcase and entered it into a craft exhibition. “I made some wash bags and key rings, and that’s how the business started.”
Spring already has plenty of plans this year, from designing two family rooms for the Royal Edinburgh hospital to returning to Finland, to research a traditional weaving technique. “I want to make a statement. I’m not afraid to have colour around me.”
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