- Art & Design
With pride, Anna Karlin Furniture + Fine Objects announces the introduction of a new collection of lighting, furniture, and objects that will expand the already extensive studio offering. This comprehensive collection of works includes nine series of lighting, ranging from pendant lights and wall sconces to floor lamps and table lamps, as well as a headboard, counter seating, and a bar cabinet. All of this is the result of the organic sculptural process for which Anna Karlin is known.
Anna Karlin is a self-taught product designer, originally trained in visual communication. Her work encompasses furniture and lighting design, interiors, a fine jewelry collection, and creative direction. She takes great joy in working across different mediums and aesthetics with an approach that is united by the same principles: the beauty found in the tension between the natural and the man-made, the tension between the familiar and the new, and a ritualistic approach to craftsmanship and detail. A sculptor at heart, Karlin often sculpts hundreds of iterations of each piece and considers her work as usable sculptures. She strongly believes that all forms of design should tell a story and that all disciplines contribute beautifully to each other, and therefore, no area should remain untouched. Her studio practice, Anna Karlin Furniture + Fine Objects, and Anna Karlin Fine Jewelry, are the result of this sensibility. 
With her new collection, which has been three years in the making, there marks a significant evolution in Karlin's sculptural language, both through shaping new ideas and forms and through the continuous exploration and development of elements that have become essential to her practice. ‘Each piece I design influences the development of the next and exists in dialogue with its neighbors. Each piece arises from an ongoing conversation; one piece begets a counterbalance, something to challenge it, or a supporting piece. In this way, scenes emerge, tableaux evolve, and a world takes shape,’ Anna Karlin explains. Although different works may appear as separate conversations, they are intentionally meant to coexist. This is the unique way in which the designer works, eschewing thematic conventions and focusing intensely on the dialogue between objects in a collection, rather than solely on the isolated pieces themselves.
The beauty found in the tension between the natural and the man-made.
The familiar and the new, the historic and the contemporary, are not only explored in the relational context between objects but also converge within individual pieces themselves: an aesthetic nod to the past makes a work feel familiar, but the infusion of playfulness or a twist makes it entirely contemporary and uniquely Karlin's own. This tension is evident in the Mulberry Collection, an organic series of bentwood lighting that draws from the Art Nouveau style, utilizing a beautiful, sinuous new language of conical and spherical silk fabric forms that emerge from handcrafted, curved wooden arms to create pendant lights, wall sconces, and floor lamps. All the works in the collection come together to form a responsive and complementary landscape, sometimes harmonious, sometimes in contrast, always in dialogue. 
Photography by Adrian Gaut
Text by Elke Aerts