KRUGER GALLERY CHICAGO ANNOUNCES FURNITURE AND TEXTILE EXHIBITION
DESIGN TEAM JAMEY GARZA AND CONSTANCE HOLT-GARZA OF GARZA MARFA TO SHOWCASE WORKS
Husband and wife design team Jamey Garza and Constance Holt-Garza of Marfa, Texas, present Garza Marfa, an exhibition of design featuring furniture and textiles, which will be on view at Kruger Gallery Chicago, located at 3709 N Southport Ave., from July 17 – August 29, 2015.
As seen in last year’s color issue of Martha Stewart Living, Garza Marfa’s furniture line of chairs, tables, cots, day beds, stools, coffee tables, benches and platform beds juxtapose powder coated steel frames with either canvas, saddle leather or regional Texas woods, such as pecan, oak and mesquite. Complementing the furniture line are textiles by Holt-Garza, including blankets and hand-sewn pillows made from vintage Bolivian blankets. According to Christina Patoski in American Craft Magazine, “The result is an artful reflection of the rugged West Texas cattle-ranching culture that permeates the couple’s art-centric hometown of Marfa, Texas.”
The exhibition’s signature piece is a redesigned Acapulco chair, an outdoor bucket seat popularized in 1950’s Mexico. Finding inspiration from two decaying Acapulco chairs in their backyard, the design team combined a wishbone metal leg base with a quarter-inch thick polished saddle-grade leather seat and brought the chair inside. According to the designers, “The Garza Marfa chairs evoke more of a high-plains desert vernacular rather than the ocean/beach feel of the original Acapulco chair.”
The collection also includes a canvas sling chair that blends waxed-cotton canvas with native Texas pecan wood armrests, beaded lacing across the back and a steel base; wood-topped stools and tables made with local durable Texas species; and dining and bar chairs that again combine steel bases with saddle-grade leather. Steel bases used in the entire line are available in powder coat finishes in blue, yellow, red, green, orange, white and flat black, as well as a “Natural Steel” lacquer finish.
The design couple collaborates on all pieces through a repetitive process of sketching, building and critiquing until both agree the work is finished. All prototypes of the Garza Marfa furniture line are built at their Marfa studio. Adam Silverman, the LA Studio Director of Heath Ceramics has said of Garza Marfa, “They’re super straightforward in terms of the material and the way they’re made.”
Garza Marfa furniture and textiles can be found at the Hotel San Jose in Austin, Texas; the Thunderbird Motel in Marfa, Texas; the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles; and the American Trade Hotel in Panama. They have also been featured in Martha Stewart Living, Dwell, Texas Monthly, The New York Times, American Craft Magazine, Casa Brutus, Domino and Vogue Living Australia among others.
There will be an opening reception for the artists on Friday, July 17 from 6 – 9 PM.For more information about Garza Marfa, please visit www.garzamarfa.com.
About the Designers
Jamey Garza is originally from Austin, Texas.He received his BFA in painting from the University of Texas at Austin in 1986 and his MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1990. Constance Holt-Garza is originally from San Francisco, California. She owned and operated Salon de The, a boutique clothing store in San Francisco, from 1993-1998, and designed a line of clothing sold exclusively through the store.
Constance and Jamey met in 1996 as Garza was showing his paintings in San Francisco galleries while simultaneously building custom furniture for retail spaces and restaurants. The duo moved to Marfa in 2003 to design and build beds for the Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa, Texas. Once there, the couple decided Marfa was home, and began work on what is now the Garza Marfa line of furniture.
About Kruger Gallery Chicago
Kruger Gallery Chicago is committed to an avant-garde ideal that art can be an agent for social and political change, Kruger Gallery Chicago represents emerging artists working in a variety of media and design. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 12-6 p.m. or by appointment.
Gallery owner Mikelle Kruger was born in Dubuque, Iowa in 1978 and holds a bachelor of fine arts from the University of Iowa and a master of fine arts from Northern Illinois University. She lives in Chicago and Marfa, Texas. Her husband, Matt Kruger, owns Big Bend Brewing Company, a microbrewery outside Marfa, which was just named the most remote brewery in the United States. Big Bend Brewing’s Tejas Lager will be available at all Kruger Gallery Chicago opening receptions.
For additional information, visit www.krugergallerychicago.com or call 312.995.0776. Follow the Kruger Gallery Chicago on Facebook at Kruger Gallery Chicago and Instagram at Kruger_Gallery_Chicago.