FURNITURE DESIGNER GRACE PRINCE
I was born and raised in London, after graduating from Central Saint Martins, I moved to Milan for the role of assistant furniture designer to Vincenzo De Cotiis, where I spent two years traveling around Italy working with a wide range of artisans. I now have my studio here in Milan where I make my collectible design pieces, and I work as a research assistant to Prof. Anne Holtrop for the Design Studio: Material Gesture, at the ETH University in Zurich.
Your greatest inspirations or influences?
Currently the works of artists George Rouy, Haris Epaminonda and Eric N Mack. 80’s Milanese bars or those poetic assemblages you often see on the side of the road when buildings are mid-construction or renovation. Otherwise, at this point in time, I'm reading a book on the Japanese Tea Ceremony and finding the rules on materials and layouts fascinating.
Tell us a bit about your creative process?
I've titled the method of my practice 'Gestural Assembly' because I feel it summarises well what my work aims towards; Contriving light juxtapositions of material and form via a slow sensory process with the perceptive outcome of speed and chance. Each collection focuses on a specific sensation of (mock) delicacy and movement - referred to in its title - in the understanding that an object becomes more poetic in the suspense of a destructive action. I'm looking forward to releasing my second collection towards the end of this year titled 'Fragile Constructions'.
How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing moving forward?
From a European standpoint perhaps the slight mindset change towards slower production schedules, the need to consume so much so fast is hopefully becoming an 'old way' and the 'new way' is to wait and save, to buy real quality in design that will last and age alongside you, gaining sentimental value.
What does wellbeing mean to you?
An appreciation for the small moments that bring peace, for me such things include morning silence, deep thinking in my studio, authentic conversations, listening to moving water, reading books in lamp-lit settings...
website: www.graceprince.com
instagram: @gesturalassembly
Collection 'Unsettled Balance', photography by Agne Raceviciute
Colour Images Mid-process of upcoming collection 'Fragile Constructions', photography by Alma Libera
