Unique, Sculptural Floor Lamp in Cast Iron and Blown Glass with Silicone Detail

This preternatural piece comes from a virtual world of Ryan Decker’s imagination. As both a sculpture and a standing lamp it radiates an otherworldly, Metropolis-like glow. A delightfully eclectic statement lighting piece that seems to exist in a state of altered dimension and transparency, blurring the boundaries between physical and psychological.

This piece was originally commissioned for a 2021 exhibition entitled ‘Cast Iron’, in which eight artists from around the world were tasked with digitally designing exclusive editions of furniture, lighting or functional decorative objects, which the gallery would then facilitate production of, with the help of a fourth generation foundry in Virginia. Each of the digital pieces would be materialized in cast iron, the quintessential symbol of the 19th century. The focus of the exhibition was to marry the material’s origins with the new-age digital hyper-connectivity of design ideas.

On the design process of this piece, the artist writes: “Bionic Knees for Atlas was born from numerous VR sculpting and 3D modeling sessions during this cold and virtual past year. Outsourcing a fully digital piece to an iron foundry—one of the oldest materials and processes known to man—felt fitting for the time. The forms come from a newly found techno-cynicism—the ever present workers balance an immense technological empire on their shoulders with a holy glass castle on top, ready to fall and shatter at any moment without their strength and stability. It’s for all the workers who milled, casted, and fabricated this piece while I sat behind a computer. It’s for my Dad’s bionic knees that allowed him to see me through college. It’s for the dream of dropping the world on our back to all live in our illuminated glass house.”