Trends 2023/2024: Unnatural Design Odd Matter

Odd Matter developed its collection of Guise ( « Table » ) using the 17th-century technique in combination with automobile paint sprays. Amsterdam Studio explores the concept of image. Amorphic parts made of the composition are covered either by rainbow automotive varnish or by a technique called scagliola. In the XVII century, skallola was used to simulate marble or other expensive stones.

Odd Matter Studio — two young people with a good imagination, otherwise they would not have called the studio « Strange affairs » (or « Wonderful entities »). Graduates of the London Royal College of Art of the Dutch woman Els Woldheck and Bulgarian Georgy Manassiev admit that they are attracted to everything that is out of the ordinary, everything unusual, curious, and breathtakingly beautiful. The duo has been working on a series of Mass objects, mixed cork and gypsum for several years. The cork is soft and light, the cast provides structural strength. In the production of bottle plugs, wood waste is granular. Stirring such granules of two sizes with gypsum, designers received a light volumetric mass, which, like a joke, is applied to the table design—result — things with unusual texture, durable, lightweight, and environmentally friendly.

As the name implies, the Guise collection explores the concepts of appearance, using what the Amsterdam studio describes as an « almost frightening instinct », which seeks to undermine the meaning of something and fake its real nature. The collection of amorphous objects originally consisted of three benches and a console, then a screen, table, and vases were added to it, especially for the FAR exhibition, a project initiated by the Milan Nilufar Gallery, and support new developments in young talents.

« Skallola — is an old technique for creating realistic artificial marble used to decorate churches and palaces such as Versailles, and spray paint technology came from the TAG1>, » the founders of Odd Matter explain.