Brooklyn artist wins Royal Botania contest

Casual Living Staff -- Casual Living, 10/26/2012 11:58:15 AM

Brooklyn artist Rebecca Sherman's design, titled "Film Still: Midnight in Paris," adds one-of-a-kind artistic appeal to Royal Botania's D-Lux chair.NEW YORK -- Belgian outdoor furniture manufacturer Royal Botania announced it has selected Brooklyn-based artist Rebecca Sherman as the winner of the company's Dress Up the D-Lux Contest.

The contest invited participants to use Royal Botania's D-Lux chair as a blank canvas for creativity. A jury reviewed the submissions and selected Sherman's piece, titled "Film Still: Midnight in Paris," as the winning entry. "Based on the idea of a pre-coded landscape, her dream-like metropolis utilizes fragments of the real world in transit," states a press release announcing Sherman's win.

Sherman's work involves integrating, layering and manipulating her traditional practice of painting and drawing with photography, collage, digital technology, projection and installation. To create "Midnight in Paris," Sherman made a sculpture of collaged triangular mirrors and small oil paintings of smoke. She photographed the reflections of the paintings in the mirrors and digitally juxtaposed these photos with a silhouetted film still from Woody Allen's film "Midnight in Paris."

She applied the image of this artwork, as well as two similar images that incorporate film stills from Christopher Nolan's "Inception," and Ernst Lubitsch's "Design for Living," to the chair using translucent adhesive acetate paper. "I plan to mount the three prints to the front three sides (interior back, seat and leg) of the chair," Sherman said. "I am going to paint the back of the chair silver and the interior square a metallic black."

The one-of-a-kind D-Lux chair will be up for auction and on display at the Design Trust's 2012 Art+Design Benefit Auction on Nov. 7, which is hosted by interior designer Kitty Hawks and Interior Design magazine Editor-in-Chief Cindy Allen. Sherman will be on hand to talk about her design inspiration and process.

The Design Trust's 2012 Art+Design Benefit Auction raises funds for The Design Trust for Public Space, which is committed to improving the design, utility and understanding of New York City's parks, plazas, streets and public buildings.