Todd Merrill Studio is thrilled to announce their innaugural in-store exhibition at Bergdorf Goodman’s historic Fifth Avenue location.

With a focus on “high glam” craft and bespoke design, an exclusive collection of upholstered furniture, case pieces, lighting, ceramics, glass, and fine art will be on view from May through August 2023, occupying the entire Loft space located on the 7th floor.

Todd Merrill Studio, known for their groundbreaking redefinition of 21 Century studio furniture and decorative arts, has partnered with Bergdorf Goodman, one of the world's most distinguished retailers, to showcase contemporary works that defy traditional categorization by incorporating traditional craft techniques with innovative concepts and materials. The exhibition will celebrate the changing face of luxury and the intersection of art and design.

Featuring a carefully curated selection of works by some of the most innovative artists in the field, the exhibition promises to be an exciting opportunity for visitors to experience the best of contemporary art and design in one of New York City’s most iconic institutions.

Todd Merrill Studio represents over 40 international artists and designers. Among the featured on view are Amy Cushing, Jamie Harris, Vadim Kibardin, Draga Obradovich and Aurel Basedow, John Procario, Stefan Rurak, Christopher Russell, Maarten Vrolijk, and Djivan Schapira.

Maarten Vrolijk, Amsterdam-based artist and designer, believes that art should make people’s everyday lives more beautiful through the many little details that evoke the unexpected. While strongly influenced by the natural world, Vrolijk is not on a quest to present an imitation of the “real” world, but rather, an exploration of the simple, unequivocal, and often overlooked aspects: color, form, delicacy, strength, transparency, ephemerality that provide a map to the fascinations we gravitate to when experiencing the world around us.

Stefan Rurak’s furniture defies conventional boundaries – merging fine art aesthetics, modern conceptual design, and traditional, hand-made craftsmanship techniques. His evocative, one-of-a-kind works are the type of collectible pieces built to span generations. Working with a variety of materials – wood, cast concrete, and steel – Rurak draws no distinction between art and design – the utilitarian becoming a canvas for his aesthetic endeavor. Each piece conveys movement, action, and intuition, providing a stark counterpoint to the meticulous construction and composition of the functional skeleton underneath.

Amy Cushing has gained international acclaim for her large-scale, site-specific installations of handmade colored glass and intimate cross discipline glass sculptures. After studying an eclectic array of disciplines at the Chelsea School of Art and Design in London, Cushing focused her attention on public art, specializing in architectural ceramics and glass. She currently creates custom glass installations for private and commercial spaces.

Jamie Harris’ spellbinding glass sculptures, which he calls Infusion Blocks, boast a dynamic quality rooted in his ability to capture the alchemy and activity of the glass making process into a static, impenetrable three-dimensional image. Superficially the works present themselves as rich color-field paintings. Vibrant, cascading color combinations expand and contract upon each other, jockeying for space as they are pushed to the picture’s edge. Challenging the inflexible opacity of painting, the innate ability of glass to transmit, reflect, and absorb light creates an ever-changing abstract picture, one that is in a constant dialogue with the surrounding environment.

John Procario, having grown up around his carpenter father’s workshop, entered the world of art and design with a well defined love of woodworking and a distinct vision inspired by his reverence for the material’s possibilities and limitations. Starting with his Freeform Series, and later translating and taking inspiration from this series to develop new works, Procario has continued to produce elegant, contemporary, and minimalistic designs that capture its audiences emotionally through sensation and observation.

Djivan Schapira, French-American designer, draws from a wealth of divergent experiences and inspirations to create unique works of collective design that are as cleverly functional as they are playfully animated. His sun-drenched New Jersey studio, with unparalleled views of the Hudson River and the New York skyline, is a riotous amassment of art, vintage furniture and objects, graphic design, and an expanding tangle of houseplants. In spite of this aesthetic chaos, which fuels his creative motivations, his works are remarkably distilled and confidently realized.

Christopher Russell has devoted himself to creating unique works of art, functional design, custom architectural elements, and large-scale commissions in an ever-expanding exploration of clay, his principal medium. Originally focused on painting and drawing, Russell was attracted to the malleable properties and endless possibilities of clay, which can traverse the divide between functional and purely aesthetic. Initially translating his draftsmanship to decorative graphic tiles, his work eventually progressed into hand-built sculpture, and most recently decorative vessels.

Draga Obradovic and Aurel Basedow founded their design studio in 2007 in the town of Como, Italy. Their multi-disciplinary practice specializes in unique works that blend colored resins, concrete, bronze, and brass. Inspired by Minimalism’s simplified volumes, retro-futuristic experimentation of Space Age design, and the eye-bending patterns of Optical Art, they have brilliantly synthesized these varied influences to build an all-new collection called “Transparency Matters’, entirely fabricated by hand.