Summer Picnic

This week Mint presents a wonderful selection of silverware by Thalia Maria Georgoulis. Georgoulis’ work celebrates the beauty of everyday and simple objects, nature, tradition and ritual.

As a result, Georgoulis’ designs appear iconographic, part of our daily vocabulary of forms, such as plates, cups and forks.

By mixing everyday forms with beautifully hand forged silver details, Georgoulis thus introduces an additional narrative to a familiar household item.

Georgoulis’ exquisite designs have been crafted for the everyday enjoyment of truly timeless pieces.

Georgoulis won the ‘Wedgewood Award for Non Ceramics’ in 1997, after having completed an MA at the Royal Collage of Art  in Goldsmithing, Metalwork & Jewelry.

Since then Georgoulis’ work has been on regular display across Europe and the US at such prestigious venues as Sotheby’s (London and New York), Galerie Sofie Lachaert (Belgium) and Galerie Marzee (Holland).

Images courtesy of Thalia Maria Georgoulis by Inge Clemente and David Ausloos.

This week Mint also presents a wonderful selection of paper plates by WASARA. This series of different size and shape paper plates should really be called by another name since they’re so completely beyond what you see in your typical store for picnics and the like.

Wasara’s products are made from three materials: bagasse sugar cane fiber, bamboo and reed pulp. All are readily available and rapidly renewable resources.

While the materials are not recycled, bagasse is a by-product of the sugar refining process that is often used to make insulated disposable food containers.

The organic shapes of WASARA tableware have curved corners and lips that naturally follow the shape of fingers or thumbs for easy gripping, deliberately designed so that people can hold their plates while they mingle. It reinforces the designers’ desire to encourage conversation and mingling during dining, a tradition of Japanese dining that they feel enhances the dining experience.

The many shapes, sizes and forms of the tableware and the soft off-white color in a thick, sturdy form that can stand up to the heaviest foods you serve and looks deceptively like artisan pottery.

For more information and prices, please call us on +44 207 225 2228 or email us at info@mintshop.co.uk

Bokja Design as seen at our summer show, Kaleidoscope

Mint are currently exhibiting works by Bokja as part of its Summer show – Kaleidoscope, running from June 10th till July 10th. Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri are the Beirut -based duo behind the Bokja concept. The pair are a natural union of talent and creativity.

Eames Lounge Chair all dressed up!

They both share a common love for antiques and vintage furniture, as well as a passion for ancient textiles and tapestries from the Levant and countires along the Silk Road.

Caravan Armchair

Established in 2000, Bokja is an expression of respect and love for an age-old culture and aesthetic with a human approach.The Bokja philosophy adds a touch of bold colour and texture to any interior and all of its pieces are handmade by traditional craftsmen.

A selection Schizophrenia Armchairs

Schizophrenia Armchair

Bean Sofa

Bean Sofa, fabric detail

Not even this volkswagen could escape Bokja’s hands!

For more information and prices, please call us on +44 207 225 2228 or email us at info@mintshop.co.uk

Caren Hartley at her best

Caren Hartley is an applied artist working predominantly in metal, with a fascination for the lives of familiar objects – especially those that are seemingly unimportant or have fallen from favour.

Following the themes of rebirth, simulation and object translations, she explores how a parody of the original is created when material truths and untruths are interfered with.

Through the subversion of an object’s material identity, she investigates how the physical marks of time and use can denote personal histories and object biographies.

How these marks change and distort through the process of replication is intriguing and she is continuing to explore how this distortion can give a false representation of the past, disrupting the object’s historical timeline, and hence our understanding of that object.

For this new piece of work Hartley has taken inspiration from the cluttered display cabinets and sideboards that can often be found in British homes – often a mixture of valuable collectables, precious family memorabilia and accumulated tat.

Captivated by rows of cut crystal glass ware; treasured and proudly displayed but often never used, as if its function has been lost to a by gone age.

Within Mint Hartley has created a domestic scene, a sideboard filled with a clutter of objects rendered obsolete by material and by society.

The multiplied pieces of ‘glass ware’, some metal and some made from wax in an ‘embryo’ state, litter a mirrored table; in order to create an intriguing parody of the traditional home display area.

For more information and prices, please call us on +44 207 225 2228 or email us at info@mintshop.co.uk