Saturday, July 03, 2010

KUBOAA?

In April we posted about the creative and contemporary wallpapers of Wallpaper Collective. Big Apple dweller Cindy Weil founded Wallpaper Collective. She and her employees have been on a constant quest for the most interesting, clever, hip and beautiful wallpapers they can find.

Now Cindy Weil is back with KUBOAA,
a word invented by the great modern Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun, and put into the mouth of the starving hero of his masterwork, "Hunger." For Hamsun's delirious hero, the word was a pure sound, something outside, even above, the realm of signifying language. Always aware of the absurd, and with a longing after purity that led him into some dark corners of the psyche, Hamsun meant for his "kuboaa" to be a word free from reference. Kuboaa was the word of the modern primitive, the word of regrounding, of beginning again, outside existing language and away from the freight of civilization.
SO WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH WALLPAPER???



Artist and designer Andrew Hardiman is clearly inspired by the rich tradition of classical design in his native country, however he has managed to step outside these strict parameters and create fresh, edgy, ironic designs, in bold graphics and colors – with hidden messages and inside jokes. Look closely and you will see in his trellis design, a suited wage-man riding the escalator up. A commentary on our sisyphean existence or a beautiful wallcovering for a sunroom? The thinking man’s (woman's) wallpaper.

Another example of Kuboaa is this Sequoia wallpaper. If you look close, you'll see a stag in the background.



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1 comment:

Lloyd from OfficeDeskReviews said...

Sequoia wallpaper is extremely narrative. It's good news that the restoration of story telling through static images has become the subject of independent designers. I'm saying this because I think it has been kept under strict regulations by the concepts of cartoon and manga.

Lloyd Burrell
Publisher
www.officedeskreviews.com