Fractal furniture: Holly Hunt collaborates with artist Paula Crown

Creating two furniture pieces inlayed with Crown’s fractal drawings
Designer Holly Hunt has collaborated with artist Paula Crown (coinciding with both PAD and Frieze Art Fair), creating two furniture pieces inlayed with Crown’s fractal drawings
(Image credit: Holly Hunt)

It's a honeymoon week for the ongoing marriage between art and design. The amicable pair blissfully merge for London’s Frieze Art Fair and PAD – and American designer Holly Hunt is exploring the other half for the first time, collaborating with contemporary artist Paula Crown.

The exhibition, titled ‘The Paula Crown Affair’ (a collaboration with New York's Marlborough Gallery), is hosting Crown’s artwork alongside two new furniture pieces decorated with the her fractal designs, on show at Hunt’s Mayfair space.

Their fruitful coupling began in Chicago – the city where both creative minds come from;  ‘Paula’s graphic sensibility is exceptional,' explains Hunt, 'and the depth of her fractal drawings made for an interesting application to marble.’

Crown’s organic work is said to explore place and landscape, made graphic through its patterned form. Unanchored Coordinates, one of the many prints on show, is made up of thousands of geometric lines, converging so as to almost appear 3D. Another intriguing work is a selection of MRI brain scans, 2013's Inside My Head: a contemporary self portrait, which displays tunnel visions deep into the brain that Crown has manipulated with ink on acrylic.

For the collaboration, Crown’s ‘dimensionsionised drawings’ are transcribed through brass inlaying onto Hunt’s modern pieces, creating two contemporary and fascinating forms. The gold print glows against the deep and dark Nero Assoluto marble pedestal and Vetro Bianco side table.

A new pedestal and side table

The installation, titled ’The Paula Crown Affair’, is hosting the Chicago-based artist’s work alongside a new pedestal and side table, on show at Hunt’s Mayfair space

(Image credit: Holly Hunt)

Crown’s organic work is said to explore place and landscape made graphic through its geometric fractal form.

Crown’s organic work is said to explore place and landscape made graphic through its geometric fractal form. Pictured: Unanchored Coordinates, 2014

(Image credit: Holly Hunt)

Displays more of Crown’s digitalised

Bearings Down, 2013 displays more of Crown’s digitalised, yet organic, prints

(Image credit: Holly Hunt)

Crown’s ‘dimensionsionised drawings

For the collaboration, Crown’s ‘dimensionsionised drawings’ are transcribed through brass inlaying onto Hunt’s modern pieces, creating two contemporary and fascinating forms

(Image credit: Holly Hunt)

The gold print glows against the deep and dark Nero Assoluto marble pedestal

The gold print glows against the deep and dark Nero Assoluto marble pedestal and Vetro Bianco side table

(Image credit: Holly Hunt)

INFORMATION
‘The Paula Crown Affair’ is on view until 18 October

ADDRESS

Holly Hunt
20 Grafton Street
London, W1S 4DZ

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Sujata Burman is a writer and editor based in London, specialising in design and culture. She was Digital Design Editor at Wallpaper* before moving to her current role of Head of Content at London Design Festival and London Design Biennale where she is expanding the content offering of the showcases. Over the past decade, Sujata has written for global design and culture publications, and has been a speaker, moderator and judge for institutions and brands including RIBA, D&AD, Design Museum and Design Miami/. In 2019, she co-authored her first book, An Opinionated Guide to London Architecture, published by Hoxton Mini Press, which was driven by her aim to make the fields of design and architecture accessible to wider audiences.