Arthur Seigneur and Adam Goodrum sublimate straw marquetry in Australia, redefining aesthetics and design patterns via their monochromatic Mother and Child collection.
For the past seven years, Australian industrial designer Adam Goodrum and French straw marquetry specialist Arthur Seigneur have been exploring unusual sculptural forms at the intersection of art, craft, and design. The former has worked with brands like Cappellini, Alessi and Veuve Cliquot. The latter has worked with artist and expert Lison de Caunes, granddaughter of designer André Groult.
The duo continues to promote this 17th century technique that is being revived. Straw marquetry consists of handcrafting patterns from strands of dyed straw, which are flattened and glued to a support. With this new collection (cabinetry and tabletop), Adam and Arthur Design (A&A) Studio transcends its natural, versatile, and eco-friendly veneer skills.
“Mother and Child” represents the duo’s most ambitious project yet, standing out from the usual variegated colors of their previous series.
Sumptuous mix
The wardrobe required more than 16,000 inlaid white straw ribbons, giving it a pearly tone, interspersed with black stripes. The name of the collection becomes more understandable when the doors are opened, revealing the silhouettes of a mother and child.
The semicircular patterns emphasize their figures and shoulders in an apparent way. The “Continuum” table, with its equally inventive shape of “an equilateral triangle with two inclined spheres at each end,” allows it to be positioned in two different ways. The lines are thus amplified, accentuating the formal three-dimensional aspect, when the straws create a spectrum of tones and textures within the limits of black and white.
“The graphic and contrasting process echoes the themes of sensibility and metamorphosis in the work of M.C. Escher and a shared love of visual puzzles,” the designers explain. Both of them brilliantly revisit this age-old craft, playing with light to create illusions of perspective and that infinite possibility of patterns and colors.
Nathalie Dassa