Thursday, November 5 to Wednesday, November 18, 2009

As the Earth tilts farther away from the sun, we all feel it. Galerie CO thumbs its nose at the seasonal blahs with an illuminating look at sustainable lighting design by ten international designers working with recycled or renewable materials.

Drop by and find out what's elecrifying, current and sustainable in the world of lamps!

Applying light to an object animates it, gives it movement and warmth - illuminates its soul and highlights the very particular materials that are used to create it. It's that creative impulse that CO embraces. Bright Ideas will beam a warm glow into the Fall darkness, inviting Montrealers and those from farther afield to step into the light and discover the unique and beautiful treasures our artists have created.

We are proud to be showing work from some of the aritsts and designers that have been with us since the beginning and to introduce some new designers.

Featured designers:

Beehyv Arts - South Africa - recycled cardboard
Sandile B. Kula is an artist and a designer working in Cape Town, South Africa. Kula works closely with partners to design, produce, and implement the concept of responsible design through environmentally freindly products, social investment and economic development. Kula has fashioned his "Floppy" lampshades out of recycled corrugated cardboard to reveal multiple dimensions of light and shadow. These lampshades are inspired by the curves of the human body with the light within, suggesting that there is more beneath the surface of each one of us.

Michelle Brand - United Kingdom - recuperated plastic bottles
Michelle Brand is an eco-designer whose interest lies in sustainable waste management. In her "Cascade" collection, she uses a material which most people in the western world would perceive to be rubbish - used plastic soda bottles - to make beautiful pendant lights. She loves seeing desing opportunities where most people only see problems. Brand collects most of her material - about 100 to 150 bottles a week - from institutions near her home in Manchester, England. At her studio, she slices off the bottoms of the bottles, which resmeble flowers, and tags them together to form a decorative 'fabric' which she uses to make curtains and light shades.

Yaron Elyasi - Israel - recycled plastic
Yaron Elyasi is an industrial designer from Israel. Elyasi is known for his work, using recycled plastic, to create practical art design with a natural and organic character. Elyasi creates his dynamic and intriguing lights by recycling plastic from bottle caps, bottles and industrial and domestic waste. Fluid lines embrace functional form with these unique, one-of-a-kind pieces.

David Gardener - United Kingdom - recycled paper packaging
David Gardener lives and works as a designer in London, England, pursuing the development of objects that are conscious of their environment and employ new, more environmentally-friendly materials.Tthe 'Packaging Lamp' was designed in response to the artist's observations of how over-packaged so many products are. This lamp, which requires no packaging, is handmade from recycled paper pulp (much like the pulp used in the packaging industry). The stem of the lamp is reminiscent of forms seen in traditional wooden lamps, but is in itself the packaging for the electrical components of the lamp.

Ronel Jordaan - South Africa - hand-felted Merino wool
Ronel Jordaan is an internationally recognized award-winning felt artist who lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. By patiently rubbing and coaxing threads of pure wool into shapes in nature, she found her direction and started a small home industry, which now employs 40 previously unemployed women who have been trained to become felters of international standing. Elegant and whimsical, Jordaan's life-sized felted sheep floor lights are Jordaan's latest creation.

Patricio Lix Klett - Argentina - recycled plastic wicker
Patricio Lix Klett is an industrial designer from Argentina with a studio in Buenos Aires where he incorporates innovative materials and forms, using meticulous craftsmanship, into contemporary, functional objects. Klett's Mauro lamps are made of recycled plastic wicker. Each lamp is woven by one person, two hands, one lampshade at a time. Klett is a member of the Brazilian-based environmentally conscious design company Touch.

Heath Nash - South Africa - recuperated plastic objects
Heath Nash is a South African artist and product designer who uses plastic garbage to make sophisticated and beautiful lighting. Among his most recent designs is the Decorex table lamp, which uses recycled containers and other objects, in their original form, to shed light on everyday plastic waste.

OllyMolly - South Africa - recycled paper
OllyMolly is a small company based in Paarl, South Africa, who design and produce woven handbags and household items out of recycled and recyclable paper materials. This collection of shades, made from recycled paper represents a new direction for OllyMolly. Employing the same techniques that they have mastered in their line of bags and document holders, they have weaved together paper from magazines, menus and maps, to create visually stunning large pendant shades, and smaller colourful table-top lamps.

Streetwires - South Africa - wire and papier mache
Streetwires is a Fair Trade accredited enterprise that provides sustainable employment opportunities for many formerly unemployed men and women in the dynamic field of African wire and bead art. Whimsical yet sophisticated, the antelope, rhino, and zebra "light boxes" are made by hand using galvanized wire frames, which are then covered in papier mache, where layer upon layer of tissue paper is applied to the frame. Each layer has to dry in the sun before the next layer can be applied.

Studio Verissimo - Portugal - reused coffee stir-sticks
Cláudio Cardoso and Telma Veríssimo are up-and-coming artists from Portugal, who together have formed Studio Veríssimo, where things are hand-made, with love, and with a sense of humour. The "Spoon" lamp is made from reused coffee stir-sticks, once used in a local coffee shop, discarded, and given a second life by Cardoso and Veríssimo in this luxurious chandelier.