JESMONITE

Jesmonite is the material I used for both the Haunted Chandelier - commissioned by Rami Fustok for The Mandrake Hotel lobby, London - and the Relic Lights series. Both works started from a single idea: what would contemporary geometric forms look like if they had been buried, lost, and rediscovered centuries later? Jesmonite makes this possible. It is a composite material - gypsum in acrylic resin - that, when mixed with bronze dust, stone dust, or metal powders, produces a surface indistinguishable from cast bronze, carved stone, or weathered plaster. Applied by hand over a steel armature, layer by layer, it produces something that has no fixed historical period. This is what I mean by ancient modernity.

Relic Lights and Haunted chandelier started from the idea of how contemporary geometric forms would look if they were lost, buried or concealed and then rediscovered centuries later. I am fascinated by the idea of “ancient modernity” or “future past”; objects that cannot be placed within a certain time, or differentiated from past or future. For me, this is what defines ageless design.

To achieve this effect I have used jesmonite on top of steel structure. I would describe jesmonite as “any material you would like it to be”.
It is in fact is a composite material, consisting of a gypsum-based material in an acrylic resin. When mixed, it accepts coloured pigments and metal powders, that is why its surface can resemble brass, bronze, copper, plaster, stone, and even wood.

Once you prepare a gypsum like mixture you can then cast it in a mould, or if you prepare a mixture a bit thicker you can apply it by hand, which is what we have done with Haunted chandelier and Relic lights. First the steel armature has been constructed , then jesmonite was mixed with bronze dust (for Haunted chandelier ) or stone dust (for Relic lights), and then applied by hand , layer by layer, onto rigid geometric construction. Each layer has to first dry before the second layer is applied, making the process very time laborious consuming. That is why the lights and chandelier took many month to produce.

Unlike many of my work, which encompasses more industrial and geometric characteristics, the “Relic Lights” aesthetic language appeals to innate and organic forms. Their grid-like design being inspired by primeval stalactites, cages and wild hanging gardens and the effect combined with this material produces an icy, snowed under glowing effect. For me the resulting pieces create an ambience that is both ethereal and captivating.