Artist/designer Kevin Walz creates a painterly collection of wallcoverings for Wolf-Gordon

By admin.user On Oct 6, 2014

Wolf-Gordon’s new licensed collection Overlay/Underlay by artist and designer Kevin Walz is now available online and in Wolf-Gordon showrooms. The collection, which consists of five Type II wallcoverings, explores two-sidedness in a distinctly painterly way. Walz has utilized translucent inks for visual richness, replicating the effect of paint seeping through canvas from the other side. While taken through serialized manufacturing, these geometric designs retain a sense of craft, evoking silkscreen or block print.

Says Walz, “My collection has a human touch of line, of brush stroke, of textures, of translucent inks. The longer you look at these geometrical designs, the more you see variation and individual character.”

The design process began by sketching patterns with pencil on paper and hand-painting on linen, allowing the paint to bleed through the other side. Walz then scanned the patterns on the front of the linen and overlapped them with the textures created on the back. This process allowed for a “dual vision” of the patterns – both the front (“overlay) and the back (“underlay) of the image are available to the viewer simultaneously.

Select patterns in the collection were made available for preview to the NeoCon 2014 attendees last June.

PATTERNS

Marz, an upbeat pattern, features horizontal rows of truncated spherical shapes rendered more complex with arcs and intersecting lines. These planet-like forms build on top of each other creating larger, undulating geometric shapes.

Jax is a modern rendition of a fleur-de-lis. The pattern consists of geometric forms, similar to the shapes of a child’s “ball and jacks” game. These forms repeat to create a grid, which is set against diamond shapes, bringing another dimension to the animated pattern.

Dimon, a diamond coordinate to Jax, prominently displays the overlap of both the positive and negative textures from the original linen. The directional, painterly strokes reference the hand that created it.

Nite was developed as a vertical texture that appears to be on muslin, created by using half a dozen different widths of brushes. The application of paint layers was done over three days at full scale. The image of the front and the image of the backside of the painted surface were scanned into a computer and manipulated to develop the final pattern for the design.

Honeykom resembles a leaky, perforated metal, with some of the dots exploding from the background. This binary pattern alternates, at one time featuring one color as the background, and then the other.

The collection will be on view at the Decoration & Design Building, 979 Third Avenue, New York, during Fall Market 2014 (Oct. 14 –16), in the Wolf-Gordon showroom, Suite 413.

Kevin Walz will be on site Wednesday Oct. 15 from 2-4 p.m. to discuss his creative process.

ALL ABOUT KEVIN WALZ

Kevin Walz is an artist and designer. He studied fine arts at Pratt Institute and the New York Studio School. He never studied design.

Walzworkinc, his design firm, is located in New York. Walz is known for his spatial designs, employing materials, processes and technologies from other disciplines, notably those from art and industry.

Walz has designed many signature product lines of lighting, carpets, fabrics, bath fixtures and fittings, and furniture. His furniture designs begin with an interaction of fine natural materials, such as hardwoods, cork, glass, metals, which are then used with resins, carbon fiber, new technologies and methods, allowing thin profiles, fluid forms and tactile, resilient surfaces. Some of the materials Walz has developed have been patented.

Walz is the recipient of the Rome Prize for his work in design and is in the Interior Design Hall of Fame. His art and designs have been exhibited in galleries and museums in North America and Europe. His interior spaces have been documented in publications worldwide.

ALL ABOUT WOLF-GORDON

Wolf-Gordon is an American design company founded in 1967 to offer designers a comprehensive source for all types of wallcoverings, united by the common qualities of excellent design and dependable performance. The product line includes wallcoverings, upholstery and drapery textiles, paints, and Wink clear, dry-erase coating. Wolf-Gordon sales representatives are based in all major markets in the United States.

For more info, visit http://www.wolfgordon.com/