Archive
May
The Kissing Cabinet
Gallery 1 and 2
The Kissing Cabinet is an exhibition of a new work by A&A (Adam and Arthur). It is the first of a series that epitomises A&A’s exploration of sculptural forms that intentionally blur the boundaries between art, craftsmanship, and design. The cabinet is visually captivating, standing tall with sinuous, curvy shapes and a bold colour palette rendered in the centuries-old craft of straw marquetry. The Kissing Cabinet’s true enchantment unfolds as it gracefully turns inside out, revealing hidden forms and secret compartments. On closing, the shapes converge like abstracted kissing lips. This captivating blend of soft movement and hidden function elevates The Kissing Cabinet beyond furniture, transforming it into a poetic and sensual object.
Pictured: Adam Goodrum and Arthur Seigneur in their studio workshop. Photo: Pier Carthew 2023.
May
Florescence
GALLERY 2
A new design collection for Melbourne Design Week by A&A.
A&A is an ongoing collaboration between Sydney-based industrial designer Adam Goodrum and French straw-marquetry artisan Arthur Seigneur, who now lives and works in Melbourne.
On display in Gallery 2, the suite of three pods and one table is inspired by the process or period of a plant’s flowering, known as florescence.
Each pod is composed of three intersecting sphericons – a sphericon being a ‘paradoxical solid’ made from the combination of four half-cones. This shape-shifting form embodies the changes that occur when a flower opens or becomes sexually functional, known as anthesis.
Viewed from above, the pod is a perfect equilateral triangle. From the front, converging circular edges. And from the side, dimensionally spliced sphericons.
The transformational effect is amplified by the luminosity of the straw marquetry’s bloom-like geometric pattern, which mimics a flower’s sequential colour changes during anthesis.
Each pod has a removable lid and comes in a different colourway – red, yellow, blue.
Complementing these unorthodox shapes is the hemispheric ‘Lotus table’ with a flat top, similarly resplendent in an all-over geometric pattern of pink, red, purple, blue and black. The table echoes the lotus-flower design of A&A’s ‘Bloom cabinet’, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.
Eschewing editions in favour of highly collectible unique works, A&A were awarded Furniture Design of the Year at the 2022 Dezeen Awards and were finalists in 2020.
February
Mother and Child
Part of the Melbourne Design Week program, 17 – 27 March 2022, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria.
A&A is industrial designer and Rigg Prize-winner Adam Goodrum and straw marquetry artisan Arthur Seigneur. Their latest collaboration is the Mother and Child cabinet, exploring the dual definitions of emergence – as processes that make something visible after being concealed, or to bring something into existence.
The former finds expression in the opening of the cabinet, in the disruption of the undulating form to reveal the recognisable figures of a mother and child. The latter through the symbolism of the lines in the closed form representing a continuum of energy, which is transferred to the mother and child making their existence possible. The space in between, the opening of the cabinet by the viewer, enacts the mystery of this process, evoking palpable surprise and wonder.
This piece is a departure from the riot of colour usually present in their work, as seen in their debut exhibition Exquisite Corpse at MDW 2020. The concentric lines are amplified, accentuating form, while the properties of straw direction create a spectrum of tone and texture within the confines of black and white. The use of graphic, vivid contrast and emergence processes echoes the sensibilities and metamorphosis theme in the work of M.C. Escher and a shared love of visual puzzles.
Image: A&A Mother and Child cabinet 2021-22. Photography by Andrew Curtis.
Part of the Melbourne Design Week program, 17 – 27 March 2022, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria.
A&A is industrial designer and Rigg Prize-winner Adam Goodrum and straw marquetry artisan Arthur Seigneur. Their latest collaboration is the Mother and Child cabinet, exploring the dual definitions of emergence – as processes that make something visible after being concealed, or to bring something into existence.
The former finds expression in the opening of the cabinet, in the disruption of the undulating form to reveal the recognisable figures of a mother and child. The latter through the symbolism of the lines in the closed form representing a continuum of energy, which is transferred to the mother and child making their existence possible. The space in between, the opening of the cabinet by the viewer, enacts the mystery of this process, evoking palpable surprise and wonder.
This piece is a departure from the riot of colour usually present in their work, as seen in their debut exhibition Exquisite Corpse at MDW 2020. The concentric lines are amplified, accentuating form, while the properties of straw direction create a spectrum of tone and texture within the confines of black and white. The use of graphic, vivid contrast and emergence processes echoes the sensibilities and metamorphosis theme in the work of M.C. Escher and a shared love of visual puzzles.
Image: A&A Mother and Child cabinet 2021-22. Photography by Andrew Curtis.
December
Exquisite Corpse / Cadavre Exquis
The debut exhibition from industrial designer Adam Goodrum and French marquetry artisan Arthur Seigneur.
Part of Melbourne Design Week 2020, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria, 12 – 22 March 2020.
Pictured: A&A Archant (2018-2019) console. Custom dyed rye straw, birch ply, brass, 91 (h) x 156 (w) x 36 (d) cm
