Ian Collings is an American sculptor and designer based in Ojai, CA. His collections of sculpture and functional objects are influenced by his immersion in the natural world and through an intellectual inquiry into the nature of things. With a bachelor’s of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, Ian Co-founded the furniture design company Fort Standard in 2011. He left the company in 2018 to dedicate himself to his sculptural work which had been a driving motivation throughout the venture. After a three year inspirational hiatus spent living mostly in the rainforest of Central America, his new insights and well developed interests of the past are synthesised in a robust spectrum of new works. The treatment of material into both industrial and organic forms are underpinned by themes of emergence and interconnectedness in his work.
Collings' works are each constituted by stone, specifically Baja Onyx and Pink Marble, marking a novel material direction for the gallery. Tectonic pressures and geologic forces generate the origin stories of rock. Embedded in the artist’s approach, is the knowledge that stone is formed through such material journeys. Molten surfaces, rugged crevices, flowing lines, details recalling the moment of a stone’s formation. Static works capturing deep-time movements. Colling’s Stone Table, in its weight and presence, might act as a stabilising force in the home. Starkly contemporary yet ancient in its beginnings. For a material that has been created in the subterranean dark, its shades are vivid and light. The piece is carved from a single block of onyx from New Mexico, a banded form of calcite distinguished by its tone. Stone Seat 09 , is also carved from New Mexico onyx and continues to highlight the artist’s attunement to colour, in its syrupy earthen tones. Stone Totem is intricately carved in pink marble. This piece is finer in form and lighter in shade. The sculpture captures the mystical capacities of stone, as well as its structural versatility.