Sneak Peek of exhibitIKEA

by Kelsey Rolfe

Though IKEA is most popularly known as the go-to place for college students and young professionals in need of reasonably priced furniture, the lifestyle store has, over the past few years, began to make its name as a high-end brand. Through clever advertising — like exhibitIKEA on King Street West — IKEA is reinventing itself.

exhibitIKEA, running from August 18 to 21, challenged four local artists — Bruno Billio, David Dixon, Thrush Holmes, and George Whiteside — to create works that were inspired by and included IKEA products.

For Holmes, a painter whose rise in the art world was swift and almost astonishing, the plan was to “use as much IKEA [products] as possible.” His neon-and-graffiti-covered cardboard shack combined several items from IKEA — a few being two chairs, a dresser, and even the boxes and crates in which the items came — with his own paintings to create a bedroom for a “romantic idealist.”

“The primary objective was to reference [IKEA’s] staged showrooms, but remix them in a highly personal vignette,” he said. “Though it’s mass produced, it can be [made] very unique.”

Holmes added that the exterior of the shack — constructed of the brown cardboard boxes IKEA packs their products into — speaks to the process of buying items from the store, and taking them away in “nondescript brown boxes.”

“They don’t adequately represent the possibilities of the content,” he said.

Bruno Billio, a sculptor and artist in residence at the Gladstone Hotel with a flare for displacing found objects, approached the project in a completely different way, describing his work as involving a lot of “pressure, weight, and gravity.” His piece, two curved vertebrae-like columns of black and white chairs, stacked 60-high with mirrors underneath, was certainly indicative of that.

“I love chairs,” he said. “[But] I wanted the chair to be a non-chair.”

To do that, he said, he had to play around with his four-legged muse — but without changing the form. “I let the material do what it does naturally,” he explained.

According to Billio, looking at his work should be a “personal” moment. “I always think of my audience [when working on a sculpture],” he said. “I want people to feel it.”

David Dixon, a well-known designer of contemporary women’s clothing, found himself with more of a challenge than the other artists. “I thought, ‘how do I bring fashion into a lifestyle store?’” he said.

When Dixon searched IKEA, he came across rolls of fabric which he used for his designs. His quietly elegant style — timeless silhouettes, and an exploration with patterns — is evident in his collection, which he said was inspired by Twiggy, and the “early 70s, Scandinavian movement.”

George Whiteside, a renowned design and fashion photographer, put together two walls worth of photographs for the exhibit. After collecting a fair share of IKEA vases, he photographed them in a way reminiscent of still-life painter Giorgio Morandi, and called the piece “Morandi Notes.”

Whiteside, clad in head-to-toe gray (including his dark-rimmed glasses), described his work as intentionally “monochromatic.” In each photograph, every one set against backgrounds of faded, stained, and written-on notebook paper, all the vases shared a colour.

“I like matchy-match, as you can tell,” he added.

You can see the works of Holmes, Billio, Dixon, and Whiteside until Sunday, August 21. The gallery is located at 375 King Street West, and entrance is free.

For photos of the event click here.

Photography by Candice Dias