The famous Milan furniture fair will be opening on Tuesday. For the second year in a row Danish design and craftsmanship will be at the forefront when the fair opens its doors for the best and most innovative design in the world. Among the Danish exhibitors will be designer Louise Campbell, who will be exhibiting her new ‘Splatterplatter’. Ground-breaking unique dishes in dyed porcelain created utilising the shapes of the new ’Elements’ service, which she has recently designed for Royal Copenhagen.
Danish design and craftsmanship has achieved an unique international position. This is underlined at the famous Milan furniture fair, where Danish Crafts have gathered some of Denmark’s most talented and up-and-coming craftspeople and designers, who will be exhibiting unique work at he Mindcraft 09 exhibition. Among the exhibitors are Ole Jensen, Cecilie Manz, Christian Flindt, Ditte Hammerstrøm and Louise Campbell. Campbell will be exhibiting a range of unique dishes called Splatterplatter, which were created at Royal Copenhagen’s workshops in a tremendous combination of playfulness, wild gestures and messiness!
The splatter plates are sponsored by Royal Copenhagen, who has given Louise Campbell free hands to express herself on the porcelain dishes from the new Elements service, which were the result of three-years intensive cooperation with Royal Copenhagen.
Splatterplatter are dishes created in dyed porcelain, which is a completely unpredictable process. Each colour affects the paste in its own way and the firing and glazing turns up further surprises. It is therefore impossible to control the result; instead the designer must allow the colours to do just what they want to. “One of my favourite things is a table or a palette where a bunch of colours have been mixed and spilled. Usually, this accidentally decorated surface is far more beautiful than what the colours were intended for. Splatterplatter marks a liberation from the careful planning of patterns. Sometimes, it’s good to leave things up to chance, even for a designer”, says Louise Campbell.
Louise Campbell designs all kinds of products in all kinds of sizes, some commercial and some experimental. She has had her own studio since 1996 and her list of clients include Louis Poulsen, Zanotta, Muuto, Hay and Royal Copenhagen. In May 2009, she has a solo exhibition at Maison du Danmark in Paris, and in 2002 she did “Waiting Rooms” at Trapholt. Louise is a highly acknowledged designer; among other honours she has received the three-year working grant from the Danish Arts Foundation and a grant from Denmarks Nationalbank’s Anniversary Foundation, the Finn Juhl Prize, the EDIDA international design award, the Good Design Award from Chicago Athenaeum and a Wallpaper award. In 2008 Danish magazine Bo Bedre selected Elements as Design of the Year.
Louise Campbell does not restrict herself to one material but works in all conceivable materials. In her own description, her working process is as follows:
Always start from scratch
Be sure there is a good reason for every decision made
Dare to be different
On a good day, Louise draws inspiration from just about anything. On a bad day – from nothing. “Inspiration requires a certain state of mind and cannot be taken for granted,” she says.
