A YEAR WITHOUT A KILN, Simone Bodmer Turner x Emma Scully Gallery. – PhotoS by William Jess Laird.

Design–What can artists do when they can’t access their primary tool? While moving from Brooklyn to Massachusetts, acclaimed ceramic artist Simone Bodmer-Turner couldn’t access the kiln, the primary tool behind her clay creations for an entire year. Such unexpected deprivation became an opportunity to explore new materials such as bronze, wood, lacquer, and silk. The result of such challenging conditions is displayed at the Emma Scully Gallery during NYCxDESIGN 2024, where she recreated her living room featuring the new experimental works.

RELATED STORIES: Read more about NYCxDESIGN 2024 on Archipanic.

In juxtaposition with her more abstract expressions, A Year Without a Kiln “reads more like one’s living room than a gallery of untouchable objects.” Emma Scully told Archipanic. “This exhibition is a tactile encapsulation of Simone. It’s evident from what she’s produced to date that her practice will only get more tender and considered as it evolves [with or without a kiln].”

A slip-covered sofa, large coffee table and sideboard-shaped pedestals anchor the space, highlighting the lighting, side tables, and decorative objects, on display – all in conversation with the emotional energy of what it means, feels, and looks like to create a sense of place and a feeling of home.

“This work came out of a certain moment of life where I was, and am, making my first true home – a home I intend to grow into and build for a lifetime,” Bodmer-Turner told Archipanic. “It’s also a direct result of my perpetual rumination on how a place can be deeply influential on both the design of a space and a body of work born out of it.”

Bodmer-Turner’s language of shape-making – biomorphic, sinewy, and sometimes surrealist – can be found in the subtext of these works with winks of whimsy folded into practical forms like standing lamps and tables. 

The lights featured in the exhibition are a nod to two of Bodmer-Turner’s lifelong muses, Alexander Calder and Diego Giacometti. Their work, which she often encounters on her visits to Paris for inspiration and creative restoration, has influenced the design and atmosphere of her pieces, infusing them with a sense of artistic history and energy.

A YEAR WITHOUT A KILN, Simone Bodmer Turner x Emma Scully Gallery. – Photo by William Jess Laird.

Designed in collaboration with Massachusetts-based woodworker Laura Pepper—an expert in traditional Windsor furniture—and urushi lacquer artist Yuko Gunji, each table features matte black legs reproduced in pine and cherry wood from carved clay shapes. They are paired with a glossy coating on the inside and a more satin finish on the outside, offering an unexpected and delightful aesthetic.

On a smaller scale, Bodmer-Turner developed a shapely bronze bowl and two fireside andirons–fluid with movement, yet understated – in close collaboration with a Massachusetts-based bronze foundry and blacksmith.

Photos by William Jess Laird, courtesy of Emma Scully Gallery.