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Words by: Laura Joralemon February 20, 2024

Feeling like you’re not alone in the room? No wonder, because beautifully rendered visages are smiling, staring, and smirking back at us from walls, furnishings, and even dinnerware. Our favorite examples follow.

  • The Tlaloc Cabinet, Obakki

  • The Vase Tete from Obakki come from Parisian glassblowing artisans

Obakki

Obakki curates modern, handcrafted pieces produced in partnership with their network of world-class artisans. The Tlaloc cabinet is one such example. Crafted in the image of its namesake, the Mesoamerican god of rain and water, the 25-bottle wooden wine cabinet incorporates the deity’s rimmed eyes and fanged mouth, playfully doubling both as door handles.

Also on offer are red Oaxacan clay planters from José Garcia Antonia. A sculptor who went blind years ago, he says he can still see his wife’s face through his hands and recreates her image on his pots.

Sculpted vessels by José Garcia Antonio through Obakki

Drop It Modern wallpaper on display at ICFF 2023

Femme wallpaper from Drop It Modern

Drop It Modern

Drop it Modern brought their whimsical wallcoverings to ICFF 2023, papering The Crossroads installation on the show floor with their Famke mural. The subtle, figural forms emerge as you spend time with the space, first appearing as oversized artistic brushstrokes.

More direct eye contact is offered by a similar style in their collection, the Femme mural wallpaper, a smaller scale design with looping strokes that form a series of interconnected sketched portraits on the wall.

Piscina

The Reader side table from Piscina playfully mixes clay and wood sculptures into an unexpected form. The hollow base, made from a single slab of unglazed clay with figurative carvings, has been folded to create a void to hold books and magazines. The sapele wood top slots in thanks to the inclusion of knobby tenons underneath, joining the two materials into a single piece.

  • A hand painted ceramic vase from LRNCE

  • The Nazir is a 100% wool Beni Ourain rug woven in Morocco's Atlas Mountains

Tea Party chair made of wrought iron from LRNCE

LRNCE

Belgian fashion designer Laurence Leenaert’s LRNCE is a Marrakesh-based lifestyle brand with a focus on handmade ceramics, textiles, and ready-to-wear pieces. The brand aims to create one-of-a-kind items that use local materials and support Moroccan craftsmanship. Many of the ceramics, woven wool rugs, and even the curving lines of wrought iron chair backs and lamp bases hint at abstract, Picasso-esque faces and figures.

The innerLine collection from Affreschi & Affreschi was inspired by Pablo Picasso

Affreschi & Affreschi

Another wallcovering brand, Affreschi & Affreschi, offers large-scale, abstract figural forms on their plaster papers. The innerLine collection, designed by artist María Dalli, uses drawings that she made with a single, continuous line—a method to impart a sense of unity, fluidity, and minimalism.

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