- Harry Nuriev - Harry Nuriev is is the founder and creative director of Crosby Studios, a New York and Paris-based interior architecture and design studio. He is magnetic, radical, and charming. Nuriev’s creative practice spans immersive environments, virtual installations, public spaces and object design. All are created through the lens of ‘Transformism’ — a movement Nuriev invented to describe practices that prioritize transformation and transformative experiences that are around him to describe his world and style. His style does not conform to typical aesthetic values and is several years ahead of everyone else. Check out his denim series. It’s stylized in a way that is so cool, nostalgic, futuristic and fun.
Image: Carpenter's Workshop Gallery
2. Charlotte Perriand - We couldn't make this list without including the ICON Charlotte Perriand, the French designer who was a brilliant visionary and so historically important. She strongly believed that good design should be not only functional, but affordable ...if she only knew now what her pieces go for now! She was radical in the design of furniture and also the use of materials, incorporating colors and metals that had never been considered together before. She was inspired by and friends with so many important artists of the time and then impacted and inspired so many artists and designers that came later.
Charlotte Perriand, Gaston Regairaz (architects), Guy Rey-Millet/AAM (site manager), La Cascade residence, Arc 1600, 1967-1969
Charlotte Perriand, 1935. © AChP ADAGP
“The key thing for a woman is her freedom, her independence. Being at the top of what she is doing."
- Charlotte Perriand
3. Nacho Carbonell - We’ve spent 20+ years looking at art & design, and it’s rare and exciting when we discover something never before seen. Something that stops you in your tracks, takes you to a different place and shocks you with characteristics of beauty, material, and color. That’s the effect that this Spanish artist’s work has, especially his large-scale works. His mesh-like cocoon lamps look like they belong in the home of a god-like character in Dune or Mad Max who has incredibly sophisticated style and taste.
Images: Carpenter's Workshop Gallery / Dezeen
4. Ethan Stebbins- When one designer is able to encapsulate and pay homage to Donald Judd, George Nakashima and Isamu Noguchi all while creating something that is different and entirely their own - say less!! Stebbins is a Maine-based master stone carver and wood crafter, who merges traditional sculpture techniques of subtraction with minimalist Japanese joinery to create organic forms that emphasize the material's inherent beauty. His work is elegant, dreamy, and simple, while being deeply informed by the ethos of traditional Japanese craftsmanship.
Images: Courtesy of Ateliers Courbet, Photographed by Joe Kramm
5. Jeremy Frey is from the Passamaquoddy Indian Township Reservation in Maine and is one of the foremost Passamaquoddy craftspeople of his generation. Frey is a descendant of a long line of Native weavers and learned traditional Wabanaki weaving techniques from his mother and by apprenticing at the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. He uses splits from ash trees (aka “basket trees”) and sweetgrass to create the most beautifully handcrafted vessels we've laid eyes on. The process has been passed down from generation to generation and those who are experts are able to braid the material so quickly that it creates a sound known as “singing”. Jeremy takes basket making to a whole new level by layering such beautiful patterns of colors of found materials and to create this incredible contemporary style, while honoring the tradition of the Wakanbi method and people. Frey’s work is held in the public collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, Maine; and the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, along with Karma Gallery.
Images: Jeremy Frey, installation view of “Out of the Woods” at Karma New York, 2023. Courtesy of Karma.
