London/Mexico City
Natural materials are at the heart of Fernando Laposse’s work. The Mexican artist and designer makes sculptural furniture, wall-based work and installations using the fibres of plants such as loofahs, avocados and agave. He is perhaps best known for Totomoxtle, named after the Nahuatl word for corn husks. In this series, Laposse uses the fibrous husks of heritage corn to create marquetry in tones of purple, red and cream, applied to cabinets, walls and tables and more. Other work includes his shaggy sisal Dogs, a series of sculptural stools and tabourets – sometimes dyed bright pink using crushed cochineal beetles – and towering sculptures of sloths. Laposse’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, among others. He was named Designer of the Year at the latest edition of the Mexico Design Fair and won the Future Food Design Award during Dutch Design Week in 2017.
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