Gallery Diet is delighted to present the first Miami solo exhibition of the Brooklyn based designer Katie Stout. Continuing the gallery’s interest in presenting the work of emerging designers, this exhibition is a playful exploration of domesticity. Docile/Domicile/Dandy includes a series of new functional and “functional” objects.
Stout’s designs project soft absurdity into domestic environments. Ideas fluctuate within the context of a characterized home with an underlying theme of softness: rugs, beanbags, curving silhouettes, and shagginess. She uses materials that were once soft and are now hard in ceramic lamps and paper pulp stools. She celebrates while subtly questioning the purpose of furniture by creating stuffed, prepubescent versions of different pieces.
Using a variety of materials, Stout explores the juxtapositions between simple forms. Textures range from smooth to hand- pinched; the furniture is shaggy, stuffed, and braided. Stout takes familiar forms and gives them an unfamiliar application, like a rug that shifts into a chair, or a beanbag chair that resembles a traditional four-legged chair.
Together the pieces create a sweetly perverse domicile. Ordinary furniture is turned on its head, poking fun at the idealized concept of home. Stout allows for the individual objects to become something other than how they are conventionally understood.
Katie Stout is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited at Design Miami/, both in Miami and Basel, as well as in numerous other international venues. She was recently profiled in Dwell magazine and featured in the 2013 Design Issue of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Bjarne Melgaard commissioned her to create the furniture for his installation in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. Stout was also included in the 2014 exhibition Great Expectations at the home of Nina Johnson-Milewski and Daniel Milewski.
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