The Dutch-Croatian-Indonesian designer was born in 1975. Sebastian Brajkovic holds a keen interest in the divide between art and design, and exploring the border between the two has long fueled his practice. He graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2006 and burst onto the art-world scene with his project Lathe. He investigates the notion of perspective and distortion of form through his sculptural furniture pieces.
The Lathe series, expanded for his first solo show at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in 2008, reflects his longstanding fascination with rotation. The Lathe tables at once illustrate and innovate the idea of turned furniture. The spinning motion of a lathe both creates the table and decorates it. The rotation is visible in the table’s exaggerated profile and in the layers of concentric whorls on its surface. Through his in-depth exploration of the theoretical and the technical, Brajkovic creates an aesthetic balance of structure, freedom, and form. The Lathe chairs also employ woodcarving, bronze casting, and embroidery. Each work is sculpted by hand before being molded. At the same time, Brajkovic employs new digital techniques for sculpture, harnessing the power to expand pixels and distort images.
There is a disparity between the delicate look and substantial feel of his works. Often composed of bronze, they are too heavy to be lifted without mechanical assistance. As such, their archetypal function is subverted by their substance.
Awards
2009
/ Lathe VIII acquired for the permanent collection at Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
2008
/ Lathe V acquired for the permanent collection at Museum of Arts and Design, New-York, USA
Literature
2010
/ Design Museum, ‘How to Design a Chair’, United Kingdom: Conran Octopus
/ Dempsey, Amy, ‘1963 , Styles, schools and movements: the essential encyclopaedicguide to modern art.’ London: Thames & Hudson
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/Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
/Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA.
/Museum of FineArts Houston, Houston, USA.
/ SCAD Lacoste, Savannah College of Arts and Design,Lacoste, France.
/Louise Blouin Foundation, London, UK.
2009
/ Gareth Williams, ‘Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in contemporary Design’, London: V&APublishing.
/ ‘Trend Forecaster’s Handbook’, United Kingdom: Laurence King.
/ R. Klanten, A. Kupetz, S. Ehmann, S. Moreno, ‘Once Upon a Chair, Design Beyond theIcon’, Germany : Gestalten.
2008
/ Bocquoye, Moniek e. and STORM, Dieter Van Den. ‘FORMS WITH A SMILE. DesignToday’, Netherlands Stichting Kunstboek.
2007
/ ‘Rossana Orlandi’, Milan, Italy.
/ ‘DesignArt London’, shown by Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London, UK.
