Les Vases, by Elyse Graham

Born in Los Angeles, USA in 1981, artist and designer Elyse Graham studied art and semiotics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In 2014, just one year after obtaining her bachelor's degree, she had already created her own jewellery line, Elephant Heart, before participating in an art and design residency at the Dirt Palace in Providence.

The same year, she founded the Elyse Graham Studio in Los Angeles, a space entirely dedicated to the creation of her design pieces, guided by the processes she has developed over the years around her favourite material, resin.

Elyse Graham’s work is characterised by a variety of unique shapes, an unconventional approach to materials and the unpredictability of her creative process. She chose an unusual material which she used in unexpected ways from the very beginning, applying the quick-set resin in coloured layers.

The artist proceeds in the style of a sculptor, without 3D plans, allowing the material to express itself randomly through her technical experiments, without complete control over the final result and allowing each object to become a unique piece.

A well-known designer, Elyse Graham creates everyday and decorative objects such as vases, which she is constantly reinventing through a multitude of formal and technical variations, as well as plates, tableware and furniture, and even purely artistic objects such as her extraordinary colourful geodes.

Her experiments around colour and resin are inspired by nature and the different geological strata of the Californian desert. Pastel tones, dark colours and shells mingle to reveal a range of sensual shapes which are sometimes round and organic, sometimes geometric.

In 2019, as part of the transatlantic exchange programme organised by the New York design and creation platform Wanted Design, Elyse Graham took part in a research residency in France, in the workshops of the Meisenthal International Centre of Glass Art.

This unprecedented collaboration with glass artists allowed her to engage in an experimental exploration of the possibilities and technical constraints associated with the use of this traditional material, far removed from resin. Blown then shaped, the glass reveals the different layers of colour applied. Through this living material the artist plays with the effects of transparency and unpredictability, which guide her entire creative approach.