Odd Matter
Studio profile
Furniture Design
PUBLISHED IN IMPRINT
ODD MATTER is a design studio driven by a curiosity for all the strange and wonderful, founded by Dutch native Els Woldhek and Bulgarian Georgi Manassiev. They love researching, probing, creating, and exploring the world’s past, present, and future through materials, processes, and concepts.
The duo met in London during their MA studies at The Royal College of Art, with a common interest in the borders of creation, process, and materials. Today, the studio operates across a wide range of disciplines and creates products, interiors, and concepts, where the goal is to show and tell the story of the projects’ creation and ‘will’.
Guise, one of their latest projects, consists of tree benches and a console made from carved foam that’s been coated in either iridescent car lacquer or a faux-marble painting technique called Scagliola. The artificial marble is used to adorn churches and palaces such as Versailles. It’s an ancient technique where the aim is to make the surface of things more attractive and desirable.
“In a split second, our brains make a decision on how we feel about the things that surround us. Feelings of attraction or desire instantly arise when we encounter something we like. Most often, for reasons we are unaware of, based on instincts and experiences. We can like or dislike something even before we know anything about the object. Guise is playing with these notions, embracing an almost scary instinct to subvert the meaning of something and fake its real nature.”
Guise, one of their latest projects, consists of tree benches and a console made from carved foam that’s been coated in either iridescent car lacquer or a faux-marble painting technique called Scagliola. The artificial marble is used to adorn churches and palaces such as Versailles. It’s an ancient technique where the aim is to make the surface of things more attractive and desirable.
“In a split second, our brains make a decision on how we feel about the things that surround us. Feelings of attraction or desire instantly arise when we encounter something we like. Most often, for reasons we are unaware of, based on instincts and experiences. We can like or dislike something even before we know anything about the object. Guise is playing with these notions, embracing an almost scary instinct to subvert the meaning of something and fake its real nature.”
