These Vessels Are Meant to Deceive
The London-born, downtown Manhattan-based designer and art director Anna Karlin has always embraced a bit of creative tension. “I always just think everything is possible and I figure it out,” she says, having entered the interiors world as a self-taught product designer 11 years ago. Today, Karlin releases a new furniture and lighting collection that is a study in contrasts rather than bound by an overarching theme. Among nine new lighting series, the Mulberry set, made from sinuous oak bentwood and delicate horn-shaped silk shades, is evocative of Art Nouveau, while the Field headboard, upholstered in an abstract floral-patterned crewel embroidery, is a nod to Arts and Crafts. Other designs include wrought-iron chairs, lanterns made from ecru-hued fiberglass and colored marble side tables. A totemic bar cabinet, inspired by massive 18th-century Swedish wood stoves called , is clad in ceramic tiles adorned with glyphlike shapes that are a recurring motif in her work. Each piece revisits Karlin’s previous designs while experimenting with scale and material. “I’m really beginning to solidify my language,” says Karlin, who developed the collection over the past three years. “My alphabet is there, I just get to keep making new words.”