New York City, isabelrower.com
We’ve almost never experienced the immediacy of wanting as much as we did after encountering Isabel  Rower’s Box Works at Marta Gallery’s NADA New York presentation this spring. Made from stoneware in a format and a hue that suggests cardboard boxes — the repurposed material that in fact forms each piece’s interior structure — the chairs, lamps, and still life–esque vessels boast oddball proportions and a kind of glammed-up functionalism that’s impossible to resist. Her other work — marbled tableware and a series of chairs upholstered in a glitchy, fuzzed-out pixel pattern — suggests that Rower isn’t remotely interested in presenting work in a straightforward fashion. Judging from what’s to come, we’ll be all the better for it. 

What is American design to you, and what excites you about it?

The Shakers and the subway. The Shakers, because of their collectivism and individuality and their vision of objects as a manifestation of a lifestyle and belief system. And, more personally, growing up in New York City, the subway system was the first thing that represented American design to me. The design of the maps, the interiors of the trains, the tiled stations — they are all totally functional but still adorned. That’s what I miss sometimes from the Shakers, the idea that things can be beautiful and functional but still ornamented. That feels like an essential part of American design.

What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? 

I am very excited to start working on my solo exhibition with Marta Gallery in Los Angeles for September 2025. I’m looking forward to developing my practice with ceramic material as well as more predictable and pliable materials. I have a few collaborations I am developing as well that are very exciting and hopefully will be complete soon.

What inspires or informs your work in general? 

The design school part of me wants to say that I’m driven by an exploration of material properties and expanding how a material is used, or seen, or pushing a material to its limits, or learning about its history. But, if I’m honest, my real interest is in the beauty of craft; the material is less important for me. I’m very inspired by the elements of craft that are present in film, painting, and architecture. I just saw a screening of Tales of Hoffman, the Powell and Pressburger film at the MoMA theater, and I keep coming back to this scene where the camera zooms in on a shelf of beer steins which suddenly animate into dancers. I found it very moving. I often wonder about the inner life of objects or their residual energetic essence and I felt like this scene beautifully illustrated what that could be.