The LA Design Festival 2019 kicked off yesterday with an exhibition spotlighting the city's top talent. US editor Eleanor Gibson selects six local designers and studios from the showcase to watch.
INTRO/LA is an annual feature of the LA Design Festival, curated by American design agency Small Office to offer a platform to both emerging and established brands.
The 2019 event marks its fifth edition and for the first time focuses solely on the designers and studios that are forming part of Los Angeles' burgeoning design scene.
INTRO/LA is located in the city's former Terminal Market, which has been transformed into a trendy hub of shops and restaurants with called Row DTLA. It will run for the duration of the LA Design Festival 2019, which runs from 20 to 23 June.
Here are our pick of six exhibitors shaping the city's design scene:
Another Human
Another Human's eye-catching booth comprises a blue velvet chair based on the fluid shapes found in Matisse's artworks and an "extraterrestrial chair" punctuated by an antenna-like frame.
The bizarre creations are the latest outputs from designer Leah Ring, who launched Another Human at the Sight Unseen exhibit during New York City's design week in 2017. Although New York kickstarted her studio, Ring has firmly established its roots in LA.
The Coast
Hong Kong-born Paul Chan founded his architecture and design studio The Coast in New York in 2018. He moved to Los Angeles this year in search of a slower pace of life.
His latest works are simple and playful, including the Either/Or Pendant light formed of metallic semi-circles that light up in response to motion. Chan is also showcasing a set of larger circular lights that rock around on the floor.
Klein Agency
Klein Agency is run by husband and wife Jon and Maša Kleinhample. The American-Slovenian duo established the firm in Antwerp, Belgium in 2012. They have since moved to LA, where they run a studio out of the city's Arts District.
The Kleinhamples' work ranges from furniture, objects to architecture and interiors. They revealed new products in the Klein Home Collection for INTRO/LA, including prototype for a new sofa, called The Pillow, which is made up of leathery cushions.
Rachel DuVall
Textile artist Rachel DuVall has been located in Los Angeles for 11 years, with a studio in Chinatown since 2014.
She creates hand-woven pieces made from linen coloured with natural dyes, such as madder root, cochineal, indigo, and osage. Her new works, called Untitled, 2019, comprise six square designs that juxtapose blocky, geometric shapes with the uneven, organic shapes formed by weaving.
"The work is characterised by repetition and geometric motifs contrasting with soft variation in color and hand-woven imperfection of the cloth," she said.
Block Shop
Block Shop is a textile design studio established by artist sisters Hopie and Lily Stockman. The duo's presentation is "imagined a theatrical throne for the queen of lyrical geometric abstraction, Sonia Delaunay", and characterised by bright colours, repetitive patterns and simple shapes.
The siblings started their studio with a collection of scarves that they made in Jaipur. They head back to India every year to research techniques and materials.
Estudio Persona
Designers Emiliana Gonzalez and Jessie Young, the duo behind Estudio Persona, describe their style as "female minimalism".
Based in a downtown Los Angeles studio, Gonzalez and Young take cues from their Uruguayan roots for the "distinctly neutral and minimal" aesthetic of the works. Designs feature soft forms, a minimal palette and simple materials, such as leather, wood, steel and glass.