One of Xavier Lust’s design creations.

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

The curtain just came down on The Sublime Nature of Being, an immersive, multi-sensory group exhibition of innovative works by contemporary artists (Jan. 23 — Feb. 27) at the Summer Garden of ICD Brookfield Place, Dubai.

Curated and produced by Ambika Hinduja Macker, artist, founder and creative director of art and design firm Impeccable Imagination, in collaboration with ICD Brookfield Place, the exhibition brought ten internationally renowned artists under one roof, inviting the viewer to participate emotionally, imaginatively and sensorially, while exploring our relationship to the surrounding environment.

Xavier Lust, furniture designer and sculptor based in Brussels, Belgium, was one of the participating artists. He is best known for the unique technique of shaping metal that he uses to make furniture.

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The simple and original shapes created by folding and curving metal sheets without a mould have become his work signature. He has collaborated with several furniture manufacturers, including MDF Italia, Driade, De Padova, Cerruti Baleri, Kristalia, Fiam and Extremis.

Born in Bruges, after graduating, he opened his own studio in Brussels. He also kept an atelier where he worked with steel, stainless steel and aluminum.

In his designs created for furniture for several Italian brands, he has taken advantage of each collaboration to explore new visions and technical opportunities, to create innovative elements.

In 2010, Lust won a design competition for the bus shelters of the Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company. In 2011, he designed the awarding statuette for Magritte Awards, drawing inspiration from a poster by Rene Magritte for a film festival in 1958.

 Xavier Lust has designed furniture for Italian brands.

It was not a small honour. A Magritte Award is an accolade presented by the Academie Andre Delavaux of Belgium to recognise cinematic achievement in the film industry.

The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is one of the most prominent award ceremonies in Belgium. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette.

The awards, first presented in 2011, are considered the Belgian equivalent of the Academy Awards in the United States. Rene Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist, who became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images.

Lust is a regular lecturer at art and design institutions and industry conferences around the world and his work has been featured several times in national and international magazines.

His metal moulding technique has been praised widely. Design Boom wrote that “Xavier Lust is clearly identifiable through the visible tension he gives to his objects, and the curves influenced by his innovative (de)formation process of metallic surfaces.”

“A wonderful aspect of Xavier’s work is the illusion of lightness and motion,” wrote Russian critic Olga Bozhko. “In his designs he manages to express what seems impossible. It seems as though his works are not created; they are born.”

Lust’s artwork has also been featured in multiple magazines with positive reviews. Writing about the OXO collection he designed for Kristalia, Design Chronicle wrote that “the minimalist and sleek design makes the collection ideal for commercial and residential settings.”

Retail Design Blog wrote about the Confluence table that was the result of a collaboration with Italian brand Pianca that “the attraction for metal elements that has always affected Lust is combined here with Pianca’s experience with wooden materials, emerging into an organic and dynamic composition.”

Lust shapes his answers to Gulf Today

What are the elements/inputs needed to combine functional design and aesthetic design?

The creative approach of design is for me an emotional equation with four parameters: Beauty, Technology, Culture, Functionality.

Why did you decide to work in steel and aluminium? What freedom do they give you?

Metals offer many technical possibilities to create any kind of light aerial structures or massive volumes.

Metals are industrial materials that can be used to produce elements of furniture with an acceptable target of price for a wide diffusion. With metals, we can approach the intelligence of nature, building the most beautiful and high-performance shapes.

What would you call your school/type of design? Industrial-aesthetic?

I qualify my design work as ‘Essential’, not minimalistic, not baroque. Just right as nature.

Have you been influenced by sculpture? If so, who are the sculptors, absent or present, you have learnt from?

Yes, of course, I can say that some sculptures have inspired me and my work.

I especially think of one sculpture created by Tony Cragg, which he made in the 1990s.

Your works seem to be in motion. How do you endow them with this quality?

Motion is life. I like to infuse life into my objects. Each point of view gives another shape, another face of its personality.

Can you briefly tell us how your works are born, from sketch to mould to display (if that is the process)?

Hand sketching is the fastest and best way to fix a mental image.

From a scanned sketch, I work with my team on computer 3D modelling, till I find the best balance of shapes to create my piece.

What is it with curves? You bestow designs with plenty of them ... Curves are beauty and performance associates.

A 3D curved surface offers more strength than a plane surface, and it provides material and weight economy. This is exactly what we can observe in natural structures such as vegetals, bones …

You have a good standing among peers and also the media. What are the takeaways you would like for your clients and viewers?

Living surrender by excellence and beauty, is quality of life.