Aleksandra Pollner

Dimensions in inches: 59 Length x 8 Width x 30 Height

Materials: Industrial clay, found polystyrene, 14K Gold, acrylic paint, spray paint, resin, polyurethane, plywood, glass.

Description: Layers of post processes such as industrial clay, gilding, Japanese paper marbling techniques, hydro dipping embalm the polystyrene and enables the piece to enter into a fragmented historicity across value systems.

The word glean refers to collecting that which has been left behind after the harvest. In this case looking at historicity and culture, all within the context of the material as that which is discarded but never decomposes.

https://shop.designmiami.com/blogs/news/right-on-time-1

For commission please inquire

Dimensions in inches: 32 Length x 24 Width x 24 Height

Materials: Porcelain, found polystyrene, 14K Gold, industrial clay, acrylic paint, resin, polyurethane, wire frame

Description: From readymades to the un-readymades. The piece is part a series of sculptural objects exploring the constituents of commodity culture, its materiality within an art object and our shifting relationship with objects.

Please inquire for commissions

Dimensions in inches: 58 Length x 26 Width x 14 Height

Materials: Found and donated polystyrene, polyurethane, steel frame, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, lacquer, glass

Description: The project is an amalgamation of found and donated polystyrene and was inspired by ritual seven mile morning walks of 2021 Covid lockdowns.

The studio sought to utilize a material, polystyrene, which most often then not ends up in landfills and enable its preexisting molded shapes to drive the final form of the object.

Through the historicity and processes of papier-mâché furniture making, we upcycled a material which once held and protected into a striking furniture - sculptural object.

The word glean refers to collecting that which has been left behind after the harvest. In this case looking at historicity and culture, all within the context of the material as that which is discarded but never decomposes.

Please inquire for commissions

Dimensions: 55'’ Length x 27'’ Width x 15.5” Height

Materials: Maharam Wool, Stainless steel frame polished to a mirror finish, foam and topper with 1 inch plywood base. Finishes and materials are customizable.

Description: The artist is presently napping. With COVID lockdowns, we became energized around the potential impact of major cultural shifts and their incredible opportunities for designers in all areas. We took the opportunity to conduct research around changing work environments and the impact of napping on mental health as we had found that during COVID most of us started to nap in the afternoons. Research findings also confirmed that remote employees were twice as likely to take an afternoon nap than their in office counterparts. With the changing attitudes towards mental health, impact of anxieties on our bodies, we sought to combine behavioral research with furniture design and design a furniture piece that can nurture and make us happier people. The project brings into sharp focus behavioral research and furniture design with exquisite materials and finishes to promote mental well-being.

Made to order in Portland, OR USA

Upholstery done by Joe Benassi

A playful reconfiguring, deconstructing and reconstructing of historical and iconic frameworks.

Renderings by Stephen Lewis

Collaborating, concepting and product design since 2018

Most recent projects include: Billie Eilish, Cactus Plant Flea Market, Jacquemus, Nigo, Patta, Sacai and most likely the shoes you are wearing.

Inspired by the reading of Jean Baudrillard's essay "The Ecstasy of Communication” and the work of scent designer and researcher Sissel Tolaas. This is a self-initiated proposal in collaboration with Nicolaas Wilkens for the CURIO at Design Miami and accepted by Ventura Projects. 

In a time where everything is interconnected and overexposed, fully transcendent objects and spaces have become a tepid simulacrum of our desires and wants. The project strives to regain that which we might loose to hyperreality through the creation of a physical space, the use of materiality, sound and smell to reawaken the senses and the sensual body in relation to what we perceive and feel.

The project brings into focus what Jean Baudrillard in Ecstasy of Communication calls the obscenity of the extermination of protective spaces in our lives. Our goal is to engage in a conversation on the qualities of design that are important and highlight the loss of distinctive oppositions such as the public and private, intimate, personal and formal. 

Through a deliberate sequence of instances the ephemeral quality of our lost experiences is recreated by the use of material, weight, the imposition of scale, acoustical treatment, and a designed scent.

Technical Drawings and renderings with Wilkens Design Studio

Inspired by the reading of Jean Baudrillard's essay "The Ecstasy of Communication" and in response to Holy Urinal 1.0

While HU1 is a hyper-focused installation that utilizes proportion, scale, materiality and scent to remove the individual from the spectacle in which it sits, HU2 is a permanent installation set within a landscape devoid of cultural context and of what Beaudrillard refers to as the spectacle. HU2 is the converse of HU1. By reconfiguring the original hypothesis, we provide a counter-point whose consequent experience highlights our own singularity and nakedness when confronted with the vast plain. 

HU2 is positioned in a remote desert location near Marfa Texas. A well-defined mile-long straight path leads us to the installation and a confrontation with the immensity of the vast plain and its conditions upon us. Arrival permits and brings into being the intellectual processing of the confrontation with the vast plain. It is no longer about the long walk and our visceral reactions to conditions, and it is no longer about the spectacle. This is the moment at which we reflect on being, realize our fragility in our animality, and are able to reflect on the security of the spectacle.

HU2’s imposition in the vast horizon line becomes the mechanism through which the function of the spectacle, as distinctly missing, comes into focus. HU2’s scale and proportion are intentionally non-referential while made up of elements that are familiar to us; a stair, a roof, glazing. The materials are deliberately contrasting to the setting and are an appropriation of what are commonly found in the spectacle.

In collaboration with Nicolaas Wilkens 

Illustrations and technical drawings with Wilkens Design Studio

Dimension: 6' Height x 3' Width

Material: Solid polished copper

Description: The mirror and its refractive quality enables us to perceive not only ourselves, the subject as the object, but phenomena from a unique vantage point, an altered perspective that was not visible before. Here the gaze is being denied, decapitated both through its form and natural materiality of copper and oxidation.

Dimensions: 6’ Length x 2’ Width x 2’6” Height

Materials: Wood, Powder-coated steel, Copper-plated rebar, Rusted rebar with a matte finish

Description: Credenza for Collective Exhibition with removable interior steel boxes and copper plated rebar wrapping - undulating around the wooden structure.  

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 43'’ Length x 27'’ Width x 14” Height

Materials: Concrete, Matte black textural finish, Copper polished finish

Description: Layers of popcorn finish cover a concrete tube as it reflects back unto itself in the polished copper surface. The project explored the intersection of materials of value as well as the intersection of planer surface and a cylindrical form as function forming.

Photography by Susan Simmons

Dimensions: Copper Top 33" Diameter & Concrete Base 9" Height x 9" Width x 45" Length

Materials: Concrete base with polished Copper top and charred dowels

Description: From a series of two objects, a lamp and a table, which took into consideration a function created through the intersection of primary shapes (a line and a circle).

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: End Bases 3" x 5" Length of Glass LED fixture 48" 

Materials: End bases available in Marble & Concrete. Copper caps hold a 48" long LED glass tube

Description: From a series of two objects, a lamp and a table, which took into consideration a function created through the intersection of primary shapes (a line and a circle).

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 72" Height x 36" Width

Materials: Powder coated steel

Description: A sculptural form created through an adaptation and scaling of architectural fragments of Louis Kahn's work. 

Dimensions: 48"  Height x 9" Diameter and 27" Diameter Circle 

Materials: Concrete, Pink textural finish, Resin, Copper, Black powder coated steel, Copper plated steel grid

Description: Layers of popcorn finish cover a concrete tube as it reflects back unto itself in the polished copper surface. The project explored the intersection of materials of value as well as the intersection of planer surface and a cylindrical form as function forming.

Photography by Susan Simmons

Dimensions: 5" Wide x 8" Length and 13" Height 

Materials: Charred wood, Plexi, Porcelain

Description: Porcelain cast of a singular rock found and picked-up at the rock quarry of Mauthausen-Gusen where the artist's grandfather had died. This is a beginning of a large scale memorial installation which entails the casting of large boulders from the camp's quarry. Rocks possess the memory of time and are the silent witnesses to history. The anonymity of mass graves is highlighted here through the multiple castings of a singular rock as well as the ancient Jewish tradition of placing rocks on gravestones. The casting process (singular into multiple) becomes representative of the death and the atrocities of the 320,000 who had perished.

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 18" Length x 9" Width and 6" Depth 

Materials: Porcelain, Clear glaze interior 

Description: Porcelain cast of a found river boulder. This is part of a series of cast rocks and boulders as a way to learn a new process and explore the domestication of the cave.

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 20" Length x 9" Width and 12" Height

Materials: Porcelain, Clear glaze exterior 

Description: Porcelain cast of a found river boulder. This is part of a series of cast rocks and boulders as a way to learn a new process and explore the domestication of the cave.

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 8.5" Length x 8.5" Width and 6" Height

Materials: Porcelain, Clear glaze exterior 

Porcelain cast of a found river boulder. This is part of a series of cast rocks and boulders where the concept, domestication of the cave, was driven by the desire to learn casting challenges and processes for a larger install and concept.

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 23" Length x 6" Width and 1.25" Height

Materials: Porcelain, Wood, Cast Brass

Description: The axe being one of the oldest human tools acts as a significant marker in human evolution. Tools though synonymous with function have become decorative and nostalgic objects of use and time. Perhaps it is function itself which is becoming decorative. The present project is a series of three axes each made of unique combination of materials but always inclusive of porcelain and representative to the evolution and mastering of decorative materials.

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 23" Length x 6" Width and 1.25" Height

Materials: Porcelain, Gold interior

Description: The axe being one of the oldest human tools acts as a significant marker in human evolution. Tools though synonymous with function have become decorative and nostalgic objects of use and time. Perhaps it is function itself which is becoming decorative. The present project is a series of three axes each made of unique combination of materials but always inclusive of porcelain and representative to the evolution and mastering of decorative materials.

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 2" Length x 1.75" Width and 1.25" Height

Materials: Porcelain, Fortunes written by psychics

Description: The project was initially designed in collaboration with Charlie Schuck for an opening at Object - a Seattle based gallery. The objective was to create a piece in which the interaction was a form of its destruction and self realization. The breaking of the porcelain fortune cookie becomes a performance of the objects’ own realization and art installation.

Photography by Charlie Schuck

Dimensions: 21" Length x 15" Width and 16" Height

Materials: Matte black powder coated steel, Concrete (Available in marble), Polished copper round bar

Description: The assemblage of all visible components creates the series of side tables. None of the components have a hierarchical value as all are intrinsic to the form and function they create. The composition and finishes of these materials gives them a domestic language and placement.

Photography by Susan Simmons

Dimensions: 19.75" x 19.75" x 19.75"

Materials: Concrete (Available in marble), Rope 

Description: The dimensions of the stool directly reference Donald Judd's Stool 1 series. The concept behind the stool was to use Judd's intentional use of specific dimensions and study the nature of the whole within the multiple. The dimensions of the stool 19.75" x 19.75" are split and only when the two pieces are bound do they complete their stated measure.

Photography by Susan Simmons