Blending the contrasting forms of sleek industrial metal and the organic chaos of pooling paint, the Drip Collection by Pennsylvania-based design firm Unform Studio brings the vibrant colors of Miami to life as bold collectible furniture. Informed by early American Mahantango Valley painted furniture—and built in the very same Pennsylvania valleys—the Drip Collection takes paint as its basis, but rather than using it as applied decoration, makes paint its entire form. By embodying color in physical form, the Drip Collection uses bold visuals to invite a wholly tactile experience, commanding attention and interest in a world increasingly dominated by the digital and artificial world.
“The Drip Collection conveys the power of color and the importance of physicality, but combines this with a playful sensibility,’ says Ryan Twardzik, Unform Studio design principal. “In an increasingly digital and virtual world, I’m excited to show real products that make a bold statement with their design and physicality.”
The Drip Collection explores the idea of improvisation in furniture design — the melding together of random, organic forms with industrial production processes and materials. Taking inspiration from post-war American art in movements like Abstract Expressionism, where artists such as Helen Frankenthaler experimented with relinquishing some control to the material and medium at hand, the Drip Collection similarly allows the randomness of the paint to fuel and structure the form. Inspired by Helen Frankenthaler’s revolutionary soak stain method, which allowed paint to soak into the canvas and create its own structure through pooling, energetic shapes, each side of the Drip Collection takes its form from a paint pool pattern.
The Drip Collection made its debut at Alcova Miami during Miami Design Week and is available here.
Photography by Paul Barbera.
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