“I was enchanted by the building when I first saw it in 2006 during a period of time when I owned a loft one block away. When I took over this small studio a few years later in 2009, my attraction was to the thick, natural stone masonry walls and concrete floors — all painted in the same flat, bright white. I’ve often used that trick in my own work — painting every single surface in the same cream color, even the ceiling. I adore the focused singularity of this approach — so simple and pure — just one paint color everywhere. Then the shadow and the light plays its own song on all that whiteness.
The late afternoon sun filters through the metal mesh at the front windows and creates a soft grid on the far wall, the trees and shrubs also creating shadow patterns and moving in the wind. The building — very very hard, the light — very very soft. From that, I added functional furniture, pieces, objects and textiles that didn’t disturb that calm. I gathered the interior over time in these subtle, tonal shades of white, cream, ivory, gold, beige, and brown — colors that never speak louder than the shadows. The sunlight had to remain the protagonist so nothing could be stronger than the shadows and that fuzzy, golden hour glow. The space was meant as an experiment in thinking with no attachment to a specific aesthetic outcome.” LD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MOTTALINI
