Re:View Contemporary writer Krysta Stone recently spoke with Andy Kem in his studio about his influences, methodology and visual style. The quotes in the story below are from an interview on January 30, 2009.

In creating his work, Andy Kem seeks to push the materials he uses to their limits and to create furniture and functional pieces that engage the viewer through the use of lines to create a sense of movement, interaction and excitement. The language that has evolved in his work includes what Kem describes as a consideration of “the hierarchy of shapes and elements and how they interact with each other.” This often involves using materials that are typically viewed as flat and making them curved. By using compound shapes, he creates pieces that can be viewed in different ways from multiple angles. It is this harmony of lines and shapes that Kem believes “draws in the person and makes the piece exciting.” Working by day in Detroit’s automotive design industry, Kem is able to apply principles of automotive styling and design in new ways when designing his tables, chairs and other pieces.

“I try to bend the rules,” Kem says. “I view everything as a form or a dynamic shape instead of planar or flat. A lot of my work is planar or has planar elements, but the planes and curves work in concert to create something that is greater than the parts.“

Kem’s desire to design functional pieces and furniture stems partly from his exposure in college to the history of modern design and gaining an understanding of the cultural contexts of modern design. While studying automobile design, Kem was drawn to furniture design after taking a related course. In furniture design, he found an interesting balance of both the technical and aesthetic, form and function. He explains that “[Furniture design] satisfies the high mechanical acuity kind of thing so it kind of almost hits on…an engineering design part of me as well as the aesthetic and innovation kind of thing.”

“What really got me is that there’s a purity in [furniture design], but you can also boil it down to its most basic elements,” he says.

Kem, who has worked out of a 3rd floor studio in Building 2 of the Russell Industrial Center in Detroit for the past 4 years, identifies with what he describes as Detroit’s spirit of doing and creating and long history of engineering and manufacturing, most notably visible in the automotive industry. A self-described “hands-on person,” when asked about how working in Detroit influences or informs his work Kem acknowledges Detroit’s culture “based on doing, of creating tangible ideas and goods and representations of those ideas.” He occasionally incorporates found objects from Detroit’s urban landscape in his work and attempts to use other mundane materials, such as Styrofoam, in new and unexpected ways. In seeking to use materials in ways that are unexpected or innovative, Kem’s work featured in Laminat encourages viewers to look at things differently and even to “encourage people to experiment with a different idea or a different way of going about things.”

While his work departs from more traditional furniture design, most of Kem’s pieces are still meant to be functional and stable. Intended to be used by people in real environments, Kem’s work exhibits both an organic and technical spirit, capturing both modern design influences and more technical engineering and physics concepts. He describes the design language he practices as comparable to a science project, with each design “showing the way that forces and gravity are working through the pieces.” His intent is partly to have the pieces “interact with the people that are using them, with the forces that are acting on the object.”

The functional pieces in Laminat are part of an exploration of shapes and lines working together to create unique, solid functional pieces with visual interest and movement. In describing the need to create furniture that pushes the boundaries and innovates on concepts of what functional furniture should be, Kem muses, “What’s fun about a straight rectangle?”, and his work encourages viewers to ponder the same.

Laminat opens at Re:View Contemporary on February 14, 2009.