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06.20.25

Sighted

Danielle Fretwell’s Veiled, Jewel-Toned Still Life Paintings Both Conceal and Reveal

In New Hampshire-based artist Danielle Fretwell’s still life paintings, what is visible is often just as important as what is obscured. Fretwell’s work first caught our eye at NADA New York last month; presented by London-based Alice Amati gallery, Fretwell’s seductive, hyperrealistic oil on canvas works featuring fruit, fish, candles, vases, and other tableware stood out among the over 120 booths at the bustling art fair. Depicting these items on what appears to be silken table linens or velvety drapery, Fretwell often includes the device of a painted veil or screen to obscure part of the composition. 
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12.20.24

Fair Report

Now In Its 24th Year, Dutch Design Week Remains One of the Best Places to Scout Playful, Innovative Objects

In its 22nd year and featuring more than 2,600 designers over 120 venues, Dutch Design Week continues to impress us. Our favorite objects from Eindhoven this year delighted by building upon history and what has come before — both in terms of personal memory as well as a collective — while also presenting surprising innovation, and, in many cases, a sense of playfulness. Below were just a few of our favorite exhibitions and pieces.
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11.05.24

Fair Report

Three Design Exhibitions We Can’t Stop Thinking About from Paris Art Week

The so-called “City of Light” first earned its sobriquet in the 19th century, not only for the city’s early adoption of street lamps, but for its contributions to science and art. Remaining true to its reputation, our three favorite shows from Paris Art Week boasted innovative design pieces against the backdrop of unique or unlikely venues, from the famous and historical Rue de Seine, to Karl Lagerfeld’s former mansion, to a 17th century Gothic-style secular temple to humanism.
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02.13.24

Q+A

Artist Chidy Wayne on How Doubt and Uncertainty Guide His Hand

Barcelona-based artist Chidy Wayne boasts an assured hand, honed from years of sketching as a former fashion designer and from working for over a decade as an illustrator commissioned by big brands like Nike and Kinfolk. But his gestural paintings often start from a place of naïveté: “I close my eyes and pretend I can’t draw to truly connect with myself,” he admits.
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10.20.22

Sighted

In His First Work of Architecture — A Country HQ for Kvadrat — Thomas Demand Takes Inspiration From the Page

Known for his highly nuanced, opaque, anything-but-straightforward photographs of cinematically lit, full-scale sets made of paper, artist Thomas Demand’s latest project is an incredibly literal work of architecture that appears like a paper construction. The pavilion — done in partnership with Caruso St John Architects as part of the textile manufacturer Kvadrat’s headquarters in coastal Ebeltoft, Denmark — follows, as the artist says “the logic of paper."
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12.14.21

Sighted

The Swedish Illustrator Inspired By Classical Figures and Scandinavian Florals

For Sweden-born, London-based illustrator and artist Petra Börner — known for her ink and watercolor images of bright, graphic florals, meandering foliage, and Grecian-inspired figures — nature is a source of both inspiration and consternation. "Living in the city, we're very cut off from nature,” she says. Perhaps this is why flora and fauna are so prominent in her paper cut-outs, paintings, collages, ceramics, and prints.
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09.03.21

Up and Coming

This Seeded Glass Coffee Table is the Star of Courtney Applebaum’s New Furniture Collection

Inspired by an eclectic range of periods and sources — from the ancient world to Art Deco, antiques to high design — interior designer Courtney Applebaum rarely sources contemporary pieces for her interiors. “We really only use vintage. Everything else, we make,” says Applebaum. So, it only made sense for the designer to finally create her first namesake furniture collection: a series of terracotta and raffia sconces, terracotta lamps, and a glass coffee table, with more pieces on the way.
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06.21.21

Excerpt: Exhibition

You’ll Never Guess Which California Town is Undergoing an Art Renaissance — Thanks, In Part, to This New Artist-Run Gallery

Here at Sight Unseen, we could of course rattle off a long list of renowned, influential city centers for art and design: Berlin, Mexico City, Seoul, Copenhagen, New York and more. But lately, Long Beach, California, has landed on our radar — yes, you heard right, Long Beach, home to the Queen Mary and Snoop Dogg, where, later this summer, a new art gallery called In Various Forms will open.
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05.12.21

Up and Coming

The Old is New in Gippeum Roh’s Still Life–Inspired Paintings and Ceramics

Gippeum Roh’s paintings have the flattened perspective of Cézanne’s apples, the muted color palette and tight interlocking composition of a Giorgio Morandi still life, and a hint of the sensuousness of Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers and landscapes. Asked about the source of her visual repertoire, Roh says, “My painting is about the everyday things that I bring to my studio. I collect things and place them, just as in the long tradition of still life painting. Light and shadow; natural, cool or warm light play an important role in revealing the appearance and essence of objects.”
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