Side Gallery

Sabine Marcelis (b.1985 New Zealand) is a designer living and working in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Raised in New Zealand, she was recognized from a young age for her design abilities, being awarded the New Zealand Young Designer of the Year. Marcelis studied industrial design for two years at Victoria University in Wellington, and continued her studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven, where she graduated in 2011. When graduating the designer was nominated for a fleet of prestigious design grants, such as the ‘Unge Talenter Designpriser’ by the Norsk Designråd, the René Smeets Award, and the Keep an Eye Grant.

Since graduating, she has been operating Studio Sabine Marcelis, working within the fields of product, installation and spatial design with a strong focus on materiality. Her work is characterized by pure forms and natural elements such as the reflections of light and water, which she believes highlight material properties. Growing up in New Zealand Sabine was surrounded by dramatic landscapes, always sensitive to the light of the sky, the ocean and the snow on the mountains, the artist was inspired by the communication of the natural elements. Her work captures these beautiful moments in nature on a smaller scale, as objects or installations.

Over the last decade, the award-winning designer has become known for her work with resin and glass. Her receptiveness for these two materials is due to their manipulability; sharp angular shapes as well as spineless curves can be protracted giving the artist endless scope for form. Moreover, the translucency of the both materials can be adjusted from sheer transparency to milky or solid opaque finishes. Working in collaboration with industry specialists, Marcelis intervenes in the manufacturing processes using material research and experimentation to achieve new and surprising visual effects, applying a strong aesthetic point of you to the material development processes. The series Candy Cubes is an example of the designer’s complex material investigation; a polyester resin mold is used to cast the piece, followed by an intensive polishing process. The cast resin is light sensitive, as sun rays shine down onto the solid blocks, the light illuminates the edges, sugar coating the sides, making the aptly named “marshmallow” colored candy cube appear edible.

As well as playing with natural light, Marcelis also experiments with artificial lighting in her work. The introduction of neon light to her material combinations expresses the relationship between light, color and transparency in a more constant context. In 2015 Marcelis produced the series Dawn Light whereby the introduction of a white neon tube to a series of different geometric resin objects was used to reflect a unique moment in nature; when the sun, clouds and sky all join together, creating a momentary riot of hues. The series was on show at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Holland. Since then Marcelis has continued to work with neon and resin developing complex colour recipes and finishes, resulting in her Totem Series commissioned and sold exclusively by Side Gallery in 2019. The collection is composed of four different sized lighting elements, two table and two standing lamps. The Totems are built with several stacked translucent resin volumes which are slightly rotated on a central axis. The carved-out void where the neon light is inserted allows for a multifaceted play between the twisted planes of polished resin and light reflections. Every angle of the lights is a unique visual experience.

As well as designing object pieces, the Dutch designer has a series of impressive installation projects associated with her profile including, the Aesop Vedovelle Fountain, the Dutch Pavilion at Cannes Film festival 2017, a Light installation at Biennale Interieur 2018, The Solo Sun Dial project 2018, Burberry x OC in 2018 and De/Coding ‘Alcantara in the tapestry Rooms’ in 2019. Perhaps her most famous installation was her Shapes of Water or Fendi Fountains installation, first exhibited at Design Miami 2018. The ten water sculptures designed from cast resin were a continuation of Marcelis experience and experimentation in material practices, projecting her own vision her elegant avant-garde creativity corresponded directly with the Fendi philosophy.

The designers most prestigious exhibition yet, was her museum show “NO FEAR OF GLASS” in December 2019. The intervention commissioned by Side Gallery in collaboration with the Mies Van de Rohe Foundation, consisted of five original works by the Dutch designer, meticulously placed within the Pavilion. The five pieces were designed to extrude from the architecture itself; two large chaise lounges were pulled up from the ground by extending the travertine floor to form a base, they were sliced with a singular sheet of curved glass which was seemingly pulled from the walls. The two materials met and became sculptural yet functional furniture pieces. Eight chrome columns provide the structural support for the roof of the pavilion. Marcelis introduced a ninth mirrored-glass column which functioned as a light and was placed in line with the structural columns, blending in seamlessly with the architecture, both in form and materiality. In the water pond outside the pavilion, a curved glass fountain could be seen bending the water upwards from the ground, and letting it spill over and back down.

Marcelis won the 2020 Wallpaper Designer of Year Award, her material exploration continues to create surprising applications as her reputations reaches all corners of the world. The designer continues to be represented by Side Gallery where a number of her pieces can be seen, including the series, Voie Lights, Seeing Glass, Filter lights, Totem Lights, Candy Cubes and others.

Muller Van Severen was founded in the early Spring of 2011. With Fien Muller a trained photographer and Hannes Van Severen an artist, it’s natural that their work sits somewhere between design and art. The couple create sculpturally interesting furniture objects, which interact with the space around them, characterized by careful research into art, architecture and materials. The designers explore the boundaries between art and design through a constant search for new innovative ways to make furniture with a sensitivity for functionality and practicality. Their constructions entertain a dialogue of austerity in conjunction with extravagance, lightness and severity, delicacy and solidity. Their fascinating world is based on their study of materials, their sense of color and proportions, as well as their apprehension of architecture

Materiality is another element that defines the work of the Belgium designers, materials often being the starting point of their designs. Striving to showcase the natural beauty of their chosen materials, they let the materials speak for themselves. Their objects reflect a deep appreciation of the materials they use to create their pieces. When it comes to colour, they prefer to use integrally coloured materials, in which colour penetrates to the very core of the object, if applying paint, they do so in textured layers, lending the designs a natural radiance.

One of the design duos first collections, Landscapes for Living symbolized their philosophy to “create is to live”. The collection of multi-functional furniture pieces embodied soulful design. Their works are created to come to life with the human form playing an essential part in the design; their book shelf “model writing desk”, for example comes life when the furniture’s second function is revealed, the piece becomes a bench, writing desk and shelf rather than simply the latter.

After winning countless awards and collaborating with prestigious museums (such as Vitra Museum, Centre Pompidou and Musée d'Art Decorative Paris) and galleries (Galerie Kreo, Side Gallery, Valerie Traan Gallery) worldwide, Muller Van Severen is considered to be one of the most image-defining European design teams of today. Their creations are globally identified in both private homes and public spaces. All of Muller Van Severens own production pieces are handmade by small-scale fabricators and skilled artisans, with an honesty to the rawness and irregularity of the chosen material.

Guillermo Santomá (b.1984) is a designer living and working in Barcelona. Since graduating with an MA in design, Santomà has worked in different formats, moving between design, architecture, sculpture and scenography. Santomà uses simple and primitive methods to alter familiar objects in a constant process of deformation, creating complete environments. His work promotes the systematic transformation of the ways of objectifying, organizing, analysing and transmitting. As a multi-faceted architect and designer, Santomà could be described as being interested in how a space is affected by the production of elements vaguely similar to furniture.

Santomà first attracted attention to his work after his total transformation of Casa Horta – an architectonic, artistic intervention in a traditional Horta-house in Barcelona from the beginning of the 20th century. The three-story building is now a house that reflects the designer’s creative outlook: inspired by fiction, he transformed reality into fantasy while maintaining functionality. “To create is to destroy” is a motto he has made his own by giving a second skin to Casa Horta, a building charged with history. And it is this motto that has earned him the reputation as “the artist who destroys things in order to keep creating”.

A perfect example the designer’s object transformation process was Guillermo’s redesigning of the “Monobloc”, the world’s most common plastic chair. Santomà deconstructed the chairs through melting, so the backs were partly missing, he then froze the process mid-melt, afterwards thickly coating the chairs in powder pink paint and transforming them from a completely mundane object to something fantastical. Blurring the line between objects and space the conceptual creativity of the Barcelona based designer was illustrated earlier in his career through a series of objects, in particular seating elements that were created using a plethora of unconventional shapes and unexpected materials, such as pool tiles, broken glass, foam and rocks. Since the early days of his career Santomà has worked closely with Side Gallery, the inauguration of their relationship a solo show at the gallery’s first location in Barcelona. The exhibition was composed of a range of glass and mirror furniture that pursued a game of transparency and reflection. The unconventional seating elements were a reflection of Santomà’s artistic intention to deconstruct the still images of design.

As a continuation of Santomà’s design trajectory to construct from the deconstructed, the formation of a series of chandeliers in 2018 followed. The pieces were designed as part of a project whereby the designer deformed objects and materials turning them into sculptured design pieces. Made from raw and industrial materials, for example bulbs, cables, methacrylate, chunks of wood and such like, the resources for the series were materials found around Guillermo’s studio and then transformed into new works. Often taking ideas or materials from architectural constructions yet to be completed or used his work is perceived as fictional, certain constructions were only a possibility in a story rather than a reality itself. Santomà himself views his design work as never fully finished, describing his construction process as infinite. Materials pass from one project to another and through the projects they are transformed and developed until they may resemble something totally different to the designer’s original intention. The series of chandeliers was first shown at Guillermo’s show Adjust-A-Wings, which took place at Side Gallery’s summer exhibition space, Casavells. The ancient country house, with high arched ceilings and stone walls was the perfect setting for Santomà´s pieces. The work was born from words rather than sketches. The pieces on show were an example of Guillermo’s proactivity, his desire to take power over everything that crossing his path.

Perhaps the designers most prestigious show to date was his solo exhibition at the Museo Cerrablo in Madrid. The show encompassed Guillermo’s talent as a designer and architect, his radical contemporary design colonized the classical museum provoking an original and interactive narrative. Santomà conceived the exhibition not from the traditional perspective but as a performance that went beyond the usual understating, resulting in something scenographic. Each piece was closer to a story than a static object. Alongside chandeliers transformed and developed from his 2018 collection, Santomà hurled the traditional museum into a fictious setting by presenting a purple resin, dripping rubber sofa and built-in table and rug to the 19th ballroom. Each piece designed for the show was site specific, typical Santomà materials such as plastic, aluminum and foam were reinterpreted from previous projects used to create something new, contrasting with the museum´s rich opulence, turning itself into the negative of existence.

In the autumn of 2020 Santomà executed one of his most important site-specific interventions to date at the Espacio Intermediae Matadero in Madrid. The vast space was filled a large mesh containg a concrete mantle in the form of a roof and a large powerful ball of light, playing with the idea of the human’s race’s cheap and constructed destruction of the planet. The curator Chus Martinez wrote, “All Santomà's work denotes an interest in the systematic transformation of the ways of objectifying, organizing, analyzing and, therefore, of transmitting. For this, he uses relatively simple mechanisms, altering familiar objects, or, as here, creating a redundancy between the pre-existing industrial warehouse and his particular industrial cave. Altering a space or an object while preserving defining features that still allow us to recognize it, can have a much greater ergonomic effect on our habits than engaging in the totally new. The abstract industrial cave, so to speak, is oriented to originate new ritual processes between the individuals who gather in it.”

A further project in 2020 involving the transformation of an industrial warehouse, was Santomà’s construction of Side Gallery’s new exhibition space in Barcelona. The architect converted the entire third floor of a 19th century warehouse in the neighbourhood of Poble Nou into the contemporary setting of a design gallery and living space. The vast creation preserves and exposes the structural features of the building: two rows of symmetrical columns line the exhibition space leading you from an inbuilt conservatory filled with towering tropical plants down to the pavilion, a raised concreate structure that separates the western facade of the gallery. Three of the four walls feature original floor to ceiling windows marked by iron sashes, running wall to wall at one-meter intervals, streaming natural light into the space at all hours of the day. The fourth or southern facade is covered top to bottom by a rippled curtain reflecting the curved beams and trusses of the original ceiling components. The design is minimal yet impactful, defining the raw features of the former factory whilst transforming the space into a pearl grey palazzo, where one can eat, sleep, exhibit and observe.

Alongside his design work, Santomà has composed a series of prestigious installation projects and collaborations. One of such was his collaborations with Rimowa at Milan Design Week 2019 in the Spazio Maiocchi. Santomà translated Rimowa’s aluminum casing into a gas station inspired installation. He immersed himself in a fictional inspired design process. At the center of the installation titled “GAS”, the artist created an aluminum paneled car blending functional design and surrealism. In 2018 Santomà collaborated with Simon the Spanish electrical equipment company whereby he created an installation that projected the environment that gave life to Simon’s revolutionary collection based on the “Internet of things” Together with fixed installations, the multi-faceted artist has also led a design performance in his workshop. On the occasion of the 2017 Festival Understanding Design in Barcelona Santomá invited the public to his studio, in order to demonstrate his design process. The designer demonstrated the creation of a table, a lamp and a chair by setting light to the materials with a blowtorch exemplifying his idea of material transformations. The performance was accompanied by a series of zines, created by Guillermo’s partner Raquel Quevedo.