KnollTextiles Introduces the Nexus Collection by Kari Pei

February 21, 2014

NEW YORK, New York, February 21, 2014 – KnollTextiles, through its regular collaborations with experts in the fashion, art, architecture and graphic design worlds, seeks a fresh perspective on its vision of Modern textile design. This time, creative director Dorothy Cosonas has selected designer and artist Kari Pei for a new collection of commercial wallcoverings called The Nexus Collection.

Says Cosonas: “Kari Pei brings is truly an expert at creating a vertical canvas. Her collection for us brings a unique combination of texture and depth to the wall.”

For the Nexus Collection, Kari has created a series of visually textural wallcoverings which appears almost three-dimensional. An important source of inspiration was her own architectural and environmental photography. All are printed on a high performance vinyl with a 30% recycled polyester base.

Tangled appears like a series of loose, vertically hanging intermingled threads. Inspired in part by a photograph that she took of a Japanese field, it was created by layering six individual drawings in Photoshop. Once combined, they were then printed using four different rollers on top of a base color. It comes in 6 colorways at $24/yard.

Borderline is a large scale stripe composed of horizontal and diagonal bands separated by a fringe-like texture. Inspired by woven fabric, the edges of the wide stripes read like the selvage ends in a fabric bolt. Kari was also inspired by Agnes Martin (Balconies/Galleries 1962) and her own photography of architecture and light as seen in the photo of a canopy at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. The overall effect is achieved by printing two colors on the base ground. It comes in 7 colorways at $22/yard.

Overlay, a flat print, reads from a distance like a deeply embossed texture. It is inspired by an imperfect rock wall of an ancient Japanese palace which Pei photographed. With a 54 in. repeat, the pattern was developed using an open source programming language built for the arts, called “Processing.” The program allowed Kari to mathematically create a random pattern which was then modified by hand. It comes in 8 colorways at $22/yard.

About KnollTextiles
KnollTextiles is currently under the creative direction of Dorothy Cosonas who combines clean, clear color with modern, elegant patterns and textures. Influenced by a passion for fine art and international fashion, Cosonas is the recipient of numerous awards, including Gold at Best of NeoCon. Her work was a major part of KnollTextiles 2011 retrospective exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center and has been accepted into the permanent collection of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Founded by Florence Knoll in 1947, KnollTextiles is a division of Knoll, Inc., and maintains a marketing and design studio at 1330 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019. Intended for commercial application and cross over residential use, the KnollTextiles collection is available for purchase on the website, www.knolltextiles.com. Visit us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/KnollTextiles. For additional distribution and customer information, call 866-565-KTKT.

Press:
Andrea Loukin
718-230-8032
[email protected]