In traditional wedding anniversary terms, 15 years calls for crystal, so when Gallery Fumi founders Sam Pratt and Valerio Capo called upon Libby Sellers to take the reins of their celebratory new show, ‘Growth + Form’, she gave them a fitting gift. ‘It seemed appropriate on the 15th anniversary to offer them crystal,’ says Sellers, a long-term collaborator who had also curated the tenth anniversary exhibition. ‘I started with this basic idea of crystal, but far from any literal interpretation or representation, I decided to celebrate its qualities as a material in flux, its growth and form, from small particles into a structure of geometric beauty.’
The inspiration, a mathematical study of living forms, from fish and shells to mammals’ horns and the symmetry of plants, all detailed in their ‘growing, ballooning, sprouting, metamorphosing into harmonious shapes’. Sellers found hints of this while looking at the work of Gallery Fumi designers, from Rowan Mersh’s swirling patterns of organic materials to Lucas Wegwerth’s crystal growth onto sculptures, and Voukenas Petrides’ furniture that looks like sculptural bone structures. ‘Some of the themes that I explored through Thompson’s writing were already there, in their work – I was just adding this sort of contextual cultural framework on top of it.’
