Draga & Aurel’s lucite capsule collection “Flare” makes its debut at Design Miami and Salon Art + Design in New York, produced exclusively for Todd Merrill Studio, a New York gallery of collectible design. An explosion of color, vital and vigorous, it is an expression of the playful and unconventional approach of the Como couple, thinning the distance between art and design.
Fascinated by the translucence and opacity, the cutting and laminating processes of South Korean artist Jiyong Lee’s articulated geometric glass sculptures and the dimensionality of Vasa Mihich’s laminated acrylic works, Draga & Aurel give birth to “Flare,” or precisely “Glow,” a collection composed of a Totem sculpture and coffee table declined in seven variants.
“Flare is a spark of color that blazes, breaks free and takes shape. It is joy, experimentation, intuition and expressive freedom,” says Draga Obradovic.
Masters of epoxy resin for artistic use, Draga Obradovic and Aurel K. Basedow, in the Flare capsule, experiment with methyl polymethacrylate, also known as lucite – translucent, glass-like, but also hard, light and unbreakable – handcrafted by the best artisans’ workshops in Lake Como with a wholly original technique.
Colored lucite sheets of various shapes and thicknesses are juxtaposed to create fascinating shades. Then cut and reassembled to generate a striking beam of light on each piece, from which an explosion of color comes to life.
The result is multifaceted objects, which change at every angle, fully expressing the concept of glow, which, illuminating reveals new perspectives, brings insights and leads to new discoveries.
Right here in Como, since 2007, the Draga & Aurel studio with attached multidisciplinary workshop and atelier has been based, where free to experiment they move between the hypnotic patterns of Op art, the futuristic appeal of space-age design and the understated elegance of minimalism. Armed with a diverse background in art, fashion and craftsmanship that allows a view of design from multiple angles, they create new suggestions in which Art and design follow both parallel and complementary paths, in a constant dialogue that reinforces and sometimes overturns their meanings.
Precursors of upcycling in the design industry, the duo began a journey by reinventing vintage furniture and objects in a personal key, creating their first collections “Deshabillé” and “Heritage.”
2009 marks the pair’s debut at the Milan Furniture Fair, which inaugurates a happy period of collaborationswith major international design companies such as Baxter, Wall&Deco, Visionnaire and Gallotti&Radice.
A decade later, the designers surprise the Milan Design Week audience with a new personal project called Transparency Matters, to which the use of transparency goes beyond mere aesthetics. Draga and Aurel investigate the concept of transparency as a metaphor for our ability to see and understand the world around us and invite us to look beyond appearances, to reflect on our own perception of reality and, ultimately, to appreciate the hidden beauty in things. Transparency stands for clarity and open-mindedness, but it can also represent the illusion and blurring of reality.
Photo: Courtesy of Todd Merrill Studio