Fernando Mastrangelo DRIFT

THE NEW presents contemporary designer and artist, Fernando Mastrangelo’s DRIFT Series. This exhibition opens in September, dates to be announced.

Since beginning his career as a sculptor over a decade ago, Mastrangelo’s work has been driven by a fascination with raw, natural, and everyday materials. Utilizing a fastidious fabrication process, Mastrangelo casts sculptural objects that entangle the symbolic power of materials and raw beauty of nature with a desire to create meticulously labored, refined objects.

“Drift” brings together seven one-of-a-kind works from Mastrangelo’s ongoing Drift Series. Inspired by sojourns in Patagonia and the Grand Canyon, Drift is comprised of sculptural objects that border on functional and non-functional, and marks the artist’s first use of sand as a primary material. Hand-dyed to emulate the nuanced blue tones of Patagonian glaciers, the sand is cast in layers to create a delicate ombre effect that recalls layers of earth and strata.

Works on view range in scale and function, from a sofa cast from sand and upholstered in silk velvet, to several mirrors featuring a topographically-inspired combination of stratified sand and steely glass. All of the pieces in the exhibition were hand-made by Mastrangelo in his Brooklyn studio, and are produced in very limited quantities.