Martino Gamper & Adam Pogue

Martino Gamper & Adam Pogue
Blunk Space, 11101 CA-1 #105, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
October 21–December 3, 2023

Blunk Space is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by London-based designer Martino Gamper and LA-based artist Adam Pogue. Each has spent time at JB Blunk’s home and studio in Inverness, CA. Like Blunk, their work is playful, intuitive, and resourceful, investing their intentionally-designed objects with the chance of abstraction. For Pogue and Gamper, the necessity to create something useful while also being creative is a puzzle to be intuitively resolved, just as Blunk believed "the process is the doing, the bringing together.”

While Gamper’s practice includes interiors, textiles, and design objects of all scales and types, one of his foundational projects, 100 Chairs in 100 Days, involved collecting discarded chairs on the streets of London and making one new chair each day from the old. The resulting amalgamations were humorous and thought-provoking, a hodgepodge of seating and questions about seating. Pogue has created his own textile appliqué language, inspired by Korean bojagi and traditional quilting techniques, using textile remnants and vintage fabrics sourced from LA’s Garment District. The resulting artworks are patchworks of playful grids and incidental orthogonals.

"I was interested in how, despite the difference in their materials, Martino and Adam have a similar approach to sourcing materials and to making,” explains Mariah Nielson, Director of the JB Blunk Estate and Blunk Space and curator of the exhibition. “Martino assembles his tables and chairs from discards and off-cuts, and Adam hand stitches salvaged textiles. They're also both continually inspired by my father's intuitive process and use of salvaged materials.”

For this show, both Gamper and Pogue will work without preconceived ideas, making intuitively and allowing the materials at hand to govern the resulting works. Gamper will use salvaged wood from local wood sawyer Evan Shively to produce cutting boards, mirrors and a table; Pogue will make several cushions, a large hanging piece, and two sculptural chairs.
Photographers Credit: ©Chris Grunder