Chairs with Bums

A spotlight on American artist and designer Chris Wolston and his cheeky wicker chairs.

It's hard to imagine a piece of furniture provoking such immediate delight as Chris Wolston's Nalgona chairs do. Upon first sight a wide smile and an urgent desire to touch take hold. The American artist and designer splits his time between Brooklyn, New York and Medellín, Colombia, where these curvy, playful and bootylicious creations took shape. Wolston's interest in non-Western art-making traditions originated during his studies at the Kokrobitey Institute, in Accra, Ghana and since then his work ranging from furniture and lighting to installation and sculpture – and often combinations thereof – splices traditional techniques and materials "with a wry, contemporary realism". Chris tells us about the origins of the Nalgona chair series and their connection to his broader practice.

Writing:

Elizabeth Price

Photography:

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Why chairs with bums? Where does the playful integration of the human form into your design come from?

Nalgona translates to "large booty" in colloquial Colombian Spanish, and I wanted to create something in a new material that was playful but also useful. I received a Fulbright grant to study pre-Colombian ceramics between 2013 and 2014, and this allowed me to investigate anthropomorphic imagery in sculpture. This research has influenced me greatly, even to this day. It inspired me to create totemic forms that were also representative of the human form and that became the Nalgona series. I am also always thinking about the relationship between the human and craft processes – how the human body interfaces with craft and how that translates into elevating the human body, or literally supporting the human body, in the case of these chairs.

There is something especially alive about these chairs. A sense of movement and tactility that it's hard to imagine being replicated in ceramics or metals... Why were you drawn to wicker?

One of the things that interests me about furniture is that it's relational. It is the perfect medium for connecting humans and the material. The wicker weaving process interests me too because the material can be applied like skin to sculptural forms – you weave the wicker over a skeleton frame. Exploring the material and the technique, I found it appropriate to use this format to create the type of work I was probing. I also wanted to use wicker in a contemporary way: thinking about the material's historical use and trying to break away from the traditional understanding to create a new dialogue.

Chris Wolston. Image by Joseph Kramm, courtesy of the artist and The Future Perfect.

Have traditional crafts been part of your practice previously?

My Fulbright grant was really the beginning of this investigation. From that experience, I created material processes that I continued to explore in my own studio and in the work I have developed over the subsequent years. While studying in Colombia, my eyes were opened to the different ways materials can be transformed and how mediums like terracotta were utilised throughout time in that region. It inspired my own practice and led me to set up my studio in Medellín.

You must experience such joyful reactions to these pieces. What's the most interesting place one of them has ended up?

I am very grateful my works are all over the world – in museums and private collections. It brings me great joy when I see how people can find my furniture and artworks useful. Every once in a while, something comes across my feed that is like 'whoa!'. For example, a recent fun moment was seeing Dua Lipa in a Nalgona chair.

What makes you tick as a designer...?

Travel, working with new materials and trying new things. My gardens, my studio and my team.