Surreal & Brash Sculptural Furniture
OK here’s a style warning – all that follows has the seriously (no cliche intended) WOW! factor. Erwan Boulloud is the French-based artist and wizard behind these surreal, lush and off-the-wall pieces of art – like his ‘Syngenisique’ 2016 closet/artwork, pictured above (open) and below (closed). The deep red innards look like the tantalizing peak of a Louboutin sole. Shelves undulate, their organic curves just glorious and well, sexy.
Sometimes furniture and sculpture meet – and this time it’s tempting to miss the functionality completely. Though yes – your sight is not deceiving you, it’s a clothes cupboard – though not quite a wardrobe, as there’s no hanging space. Admittedly a high-end, luxe and glamorous closet that is the stuff of fairytale. This is less “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” and more “Alice in Wonderland.” The open door looks like a discarded ballgown, the gold ‘shard’ at the top of the door looks like the pointer on a sun dial. It’s bewitching.
As if dropped from a great height, shattering the table beneath – Boulloud’s ‘Fracture Cosmique’ – or Cosmic Fracture – has a rock in the middle. The natural rings of the tree trunk from which the table has been carved create dynamic movement, like the waves of a thrashing sea or the expanding tremors of an earthquake.
Luxurious yet decadent, this is not just any old table – the sculpture tackles the notion of fate and inevitability, cosmic events beyond our control. It also looks amazing! A fabulous focal point in any room.
Seems that a cement block just fell on a chest of drawers. Whoops! Although, you can still open the drawers, and it looks kind of wonderful. Ah OK – it’s another Erwan Boulloud masterpiece – furniture meets disaster in a marriage made in Heaven – or should that be the other place?
Crash! The ‘weight’ of a metal safe has ‘crushed’ the set of drawers, which have been skilfully sculpted to ‘crumple’ on impact.
This time it looks like the safe just landed on a beautiful sideboard. Boulloud creates one-off pieces or limited numbered series that form a narrative:
”Beyond its aesthetic success, I feel a work of art is successful in its ability to generate a lineage, this is to me the testimony of its profundity.” – Erwan Boulloud
Graduating from the Ecole Boulle in 1995, Boulloud went on to set up a workshop in Paris in 2003. He now has his base in Pantin, France. His bespoke work can be purchased – at a price (on application). This is art, not just lounge furniture.
Well we all put our luggage on top of wardrobes or tall pieces of furniture! Storage doesn’t come much crazier than this – Boulloud’s ‘Les Foudroyes’ (The Storm) set-of-drawers looks like your luggage just got burnt onto the top of your storage cabinet. A freak flash of lightning perhaps?
‘Grande Volute Cuivree’ – roughly translates as a big, coppery (or burnished) scroll, or curl. It’s big, it’s brash and it’s beautiful – just like all of Erwan Boulloud’s startling, irreverent and surreal artworks.