SHY Design Studio

Meet SHY Design Studio

SHY Design Studio is a Glasgow based practice working from both a design and artistic perspective, using a narrative driven process to explore their own interpretations of traditional archetypes. Skilled in working across a range of materials they consider noble, natural, and sustainable whilst exploring production skills both time honoured and modern. Material and process are intrinsic to the stories they tell, these narratives are often rooted in design and craft-based histories, resultantly there is a history of furniture, craft and material laced throughout their pieces. SHY have exhibited widely in Europe including at Collect, Future Heritage, Dutch Design Week and Salone del Mobile.

About The Work 

Handmade in scagliola, a material traditionally used as a surface decoration that came to prominence in 17th century Italy, made by combining natural pigments, stone dusts and mineral gypsum, collected and processed in the artists studio. The pigments used in this piece come from the artists own victorian home made of local red sandstone.

SHY nod to the materials origins, first building pieces into strong simple architectural forms, before unconventionally eroding the finished surfaces. The exterior faces are sacrificed as the piece is broken down and eroded. Underlying beauty is found in new sculptural forms and unseen layers below the surface are revealed.

The unorthodox technique allows the juxtaposition of the uniform, polished outer surfaces with the eroded rock like surfaces, portraying the depth and honesty of the natural materials. The ‘scaglia’ or ‘chips’ created during the erosion of one edition are imbedded into a successive piece, creating a narrative and connection between objects and collectors.