Hasta La Ideas

Promotion: the El Muro wall covering collection by US surface design brand Wolf-Gordon, featuring designs from artists of Latin American descent, is being exhibited at the brand’s head office until the end of the year.

Wolf-Gordon invited seven Hispanic artists who live on either side of the US-Mexico border to design a wall covering that celebrates patterning and murals through the lens of their lived experience.

The collection was conceived as an exhibition for Mexican artists north and south of the US-Mexico border, exploring issues of identity, culture, and heritage.

The family operated surface design brand has been operating for over 50 years creating wall coverings, wall protection panels, paints, acoustic panels and upholstery.

“Mexico has a rich visual culture that has served to transmit its traditions, rhythms of life, and belief systems for thousands of years,” said Wolf-Gordon chief creative officer Marybeth Shaw.

“Cosmology, the persistence of dualities, and reverence for nature and its cycles are painted in murals, woven into patterns and sculpted in an elaborate vocabulary of signs.”

Shaw said she gave the artists a blank canvas with which to explore the themes, and chose artists across diverse disciplines from painting and conceptual art to product design, ceramics and textiles.

Four of the artists who designed for the El Muro collection live and work in Mexico, and three are of Mexican or Ecuadorian descent living and working in the US.

Wolf-Gordon digitally printed the artists’ designs as wall coverings, forming a collection that aims to represent how heritage is affected by living on either side of the US-Mexico border.

The designers living in Mexico included Platalea Studio co-founder Rodrigo Lobato, Ila Ceramics founder Camila Apaez, and artists Laura Noriega and Dyg’Nojoch. Those contributing from the US were Blanka Amezkua, Monica Curiel and Francisco Donoso.

“These murals and patterns are about hope built upon a proud knowledge of the past, regardless of the artist’s location south or north of El Muro,” said Shaw.

Hailing from Guadalajara, Apaez aimed to evoke the inner turmoil of leaving something behind when crossing a border in her design, Frontiers.

She used clay, liquid clay and oxides to create a sinuous design presenting the divide between before and after, which was photographed for the Wolf-Gordon wall panels.

Dyg’Nojoch, who lives and works in the Mexican town of San Cristóbal de las Casas, used the symbolism of deer as spiritual guides in his design, Iconografía y Flora Animal.

Painted in an expressive style, Dyg’Nojoch covered deer with colourful flowers and patterns, informed by Mexican festivals and textiles from his home region.

New York-based Amezkua created Echoes of the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano: A Floating Tapestry of Indigenous Medicinal Wisdom, which features colourful illustrations of medicinal plants on a black background, aiming to honour Indigenous American knowledge of botany.

Also based in New York, Donoso used acrylic, spray paint, ink and coloured pencils on mylar to create the colourful and fluidly patterned Boundless wall covering.

Curiel, a first-generation Mexican American living in Denver, drew upon memories of her father working on construction sites when creating Barro Blanco, which has a textured design depicting plaster sheets layered on Roman clay.

Fulgor/Glare is a blue wall covering overlayed with roses, feathers and stars, designed by Mexico City-based Lobato to reflect Mexican religious symbolism.

Jacaranda trees informed Guadalajara-based artist Noriega’s design, Violet Spring, which depicts petals from the tree’s violet-hued flowers.

El Muro was exhibited at the HD Expo in Las Vegas earlier this year and is now on display at Wolf-Gordon’s New York City headquarters, where it will remain through December.

Created as part of the brand’s Curated Collection, the El Muro wall coverings can be used as feature walls, headboards or desk frontage in commercial, hospitality or office interiors.

For more information, visit the Wolf Gordon website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for Wolf-Gordon as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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