With Francis Upritchard and Martino Gamper, Life = Collaboration
For furniture designer Martino Gamper and artist Francis Upritchard, married since 2009 and co-habitating a character-filled London flat, life is one big collaboration. New Zealand-born Upritchard’s signature artworks involve tiny human figures and found objects, orchestrated in nostalgia-laden tableaux—the settings for which are often tables custom-built by Gamper.
Gamper’s best-known works, however, reinvent classic pieces of design, as in his reconfigurations of iconic works by Gio Ponti, or his remixed Thonet chair at right. He has even taken a hack at Upritchard’s collection of furniture, in one instance cutting down her dining room table to coffee table size. “Before Martino moved in, the flat just had furniture from the street,” says Upritchard, who is notorious for her thrifting, scavenging, and even garbage-picking. “So it was quite a relief to have help in that department.”