Black Artist, Designers and Makers We’re Loving, Now and Forever.
Looking for a stylish finishing touch for your project? As Black History Month comes to a close this year, AD PRO has rounded up some of our favorite Black artists and makers from across the globe, whose contributions range from product design for leading manufacturers to hand-built furniture, ceramics, and more.
Whether you’re interested in diversifying your sourcing or just finding a great design, peruse the names below for some major inspiration. (And once you’ve done that, we recommend reading up on interior race theory as well as the fascinating history of the Peacock Chair—both part of AD’s Black History Month coverage this year. Or check out the wares of some the Black-owned businesses in our recently refreshed Best Design Stores roundup like Yowie, Domain, and Dressing Rooms.) Article from AD Magazine Feb. 2023.
In her work, artist Zizipho Poswa often honors the strong women she grew up with in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. For more than a decade, Poswa, who has a background in textile design, made smaller decorative pieces for Imiso Ceramics, the studio she runs with her business partner and fellow artist Andile Dyalvane. But recent large-scale, hand-built creations have shown more narrative possibility for Poswa, who infuses these pieces with references to her Xhosa culture. The iLobola series, for example, features bronze horns symbolizing cows, which were once paid as a dowry to unite two families through marriage. The Magodi collection, meanwhile, celebrates the artistry of traditional African hairstyles. “Through these works I’m telling my story about who I am and where I come from,” she says. southernguild.co.za
Growing up, Stephanie Summerson Hall would join her grandmother Estelle (or “Big Mama,” as she was affectionately called) on her weekly antiquing trips in small towns throughout South Carolina, often coming home with sets of colored glassware and decorative table settings. “Her home had two china cabinets full of her curated collection,” says Hall. “The presentation of food and tableware was a big deal to her.” Paying homage to her family matriarch, Hall launched Estelle Colored Glass, which works with a century-old Polish glassmaker to produce vintage-inspired stemware and cake stands in a wide range of cheerful hues. estellecoloredglass.com
Abir Ali and Andre Sandifer, who met as architecture students at the University of Michigan, have been producing bespoke furniture handcrafted from American hardwoods in the heart of the country since 2004. Ali Sandifer’s woodworking studio in a former automobile factory pays homage to Michigan’s layered industrial past. alisandifer.com
The works of Harlem-based interior designer Sheila Bridges will make you do a double take. In her line of fabrics and wallpapers, Bridges appropriates traditional patterns of Dutch Delft tile and French toile De Jouy with scenes that play on African-American touchstones such as shooting hoops, playing Double Dutch, and dancing to a boom box. sheilabridges.com
It all started with a table leg. “I was sanding the form, preparing to cast it in aluminum, and felt totally connected with my creative side,” Ini Archibong recalls, describing a eureka moment he had as a student at Pasadena’s ArtCenter College of Design. “I was outside the computer, shaping something myself.” Now, based in Switzerland, the Nigerian American designer continues to apply his hand to sculptural creations, among them a stirrup-shaped watch for Hermès and assorted furniture collections for the furniture company Sé and New York gallery Friedman Benda. designbyini.com
“Portraiture can serve as a record for people’s families, dynasties, and cultures,” reflects artist Ebitenyefa Baralaye. Following the racial reckoning of 2020 and the death of his father that same year, the Nigerian-born, Detroit-based sculptor has embraced figuration while contemplating his own identity. Two new bodies of work riff on the 19th-century face jugs created by enslaved people in the American South, particularly the work of David Drake, a.k.a. Dave the Potter. “There’s a duality,” Baralaye explains of the objects, which served both practical and spiritual purposes. “It speaks to the pain and agony of enslavement—the objectification of Black people—but it’s also a vessel for poetic expression.” Finished in a black satin glaze, his Akanza series mixes his and his father’s abstracted facial features. Meanwhile, his All My Relation series (named after an inscription by Dave the Potter) pays homage to his Nigerian ancestors through an imagined archive of eyes, ears, and noses. baralaye.com
When he’s not teaching industrial design at the University of Illinois Chicago or collaborating with the exhibition design team for the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center, Norman Teague finds solace in his workshop. The furniture designer and fabricator prioritizes projects that communicate “the complexity of urbanism and the culture of communities,” Teague tells AD PRO.
It’s a mission that goes beyond the finished goods, as Norman is working toward connecting Chicago’s South Shore community to the design industry via a storefront studio. “We plan to include hands-on workshops that teach, heal, and introduce interested patrons to crafting methods and industrial arts,” he says. plank22b.com
Ford car designer turned cabinetmaker Paul Jeffrey relocated his woodworking studio, Paul Rene Furniture, to an underserved neighborhood in Phoenix more than a decade ago to provide jobs and a skilled trade education to the community. His striking woodwork puts materiality—the roughness of an integrated stone, the line and color of the raw edge of a trunk—front and center. But it may be his occasional chairs, like the three-legged beauty he created for Wendy Ackerman, that capture our hearts most. paulrenefurniture.com
Interior designer Marie Burgos’s intuition for color is evidenced in her online shop, which gathers custom and curated designs ranging from a curvilinear wood sofa in a plush velvet to a vibrant spherical glass chandelier. marieburgosdesignthestore.com
From its materials to its design, OI Studio’s custom wood furniture is designed to solve problems. “By focusing on sustainability, we’ve learned that what’s good for the planet is ultimately great for clients as well as our business,” founder and creative director BOA tells AD PRO. The firm’s clean, modular designs are enhanced by textures and patterns found in nature. oistudio.com
“I’ve been freestyling a lot more,” says Bay Area–based artist Woody De Othello, lately inspired by the “spontaneous, intuitive, improvisational energy” of jazz. Such abstraction marks a shift for the artist, born in Miami to Haitian immigrant parents and best known for his witty takes on household objects, like the eight-foot-tall box fan he debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019. This energy is best found in De Othello’s latest figurative vessels, which nod to precolonial Yoruba pottery and Nkisi figures. woodyothello.com
Traditional forms from Mali, Ghana, and beyond enter a contemporary prism inside Ethiopian-American designer Jomo Tariku’s woodshop in Springfield, Virginia. The resulting wood furniture hovers between sculpture and functional design. jomofurniture.com