Incollect Magazine - Issue 14

Incollect Magazine 91 Matthew Holleman lives and works on the remote East Coast of Sweden, where he has a small cluster of studios. He’s not Swedish; he was born in New Zealand. Nor did he study design. He studied music and then worked for a non-profit organization in Kenya and Tanzania. Next, he co-founded a lighting brand in London, Cameron Design House, before moving to Sweden in 2017 with his partner and two children to reinvent himself with Ovature Studios. Little of this biographical information informs his sculptural lighting designs, except to suggest an innate restlessness — an attribute that becomes apparent in his creative practice. This restlessness is a big part of what makes him and his work interesting. He is constantly in search of new ideas and inspiration to, as he says, “do things other people haven’t done.” He is putting that approach into practice by currently experimenting with incorporating coffee bean grounds and fish scales into his pieces. He has the attitude of an artist towards his work — for him, function follows form. How it looks is always more important to him. The results are some of the most ingenious sculptural lighting on the market, for which he has a strong following among international designers and collectors. Last year, he produced 100 lighting pieces; most of them were commissions. Holleman is the first to admit he has had “a few lucky breaks.” Months after moving to Sweden, the late AD100 New York designer Amy Lau, who had seen his lighting for the One World Trade Center redevelopment, decided to take a gamble on his new lighting venture. “She invited me to create a chandelier for the Manhattan apartment of a member of the Rockefeller family,” he explains. “This sale, my first, launched the business.” The commission didn’t just put capital in his pocket; it opened doors to the influential New York design market. “I became friends with Amy, who put me onto other interior projects and designers she was working with, which continued until she unfortunately became too sick to work before her untimely death,” he says. “She made a habit of finding and supporting emerging designers like me, and I will always admire and respect her for that.” Today, Ovature Studios employs 8 people full time, along with an army of part-time workers. To support his multi-faceted projects, Holleman maintains different studios on the property for different activities: a glass studio for glass blowing, a brass- fabrication and finishes workshop, and a studio for assembly, testing, and quality control. “My typical day involves a bit of Left: Close up of the Bonnie Cluster in polished brass. Light is cast up from semi-sphere cups and radiates outward from gracefully curved reflectors. Right: A beautiful Bonnie installation with 5 lights spreading ambient light across the length of a dining table. Interior design: Gordon-Duff & Linton