Frossard presents a series of composite objects with intricate, eery details, which have unclear purpose or definition, as they are guided by beauty. "Beauty is considered one of the pillars in the definition of design since its conception," Frossard says. "Although designers tend to put higher value on the concept or the use, it would be hard to find any designer who claims to work hard to make something ugly or unnoticeable."
For Frossard, despite the fact that beauty and function coexist in every design project, "they remain two disparate, almost opposite, elements."
"My proposal is based on this tension between function and beauty, between defined objectivity and fluctuating subjectivity," Frossard continues. "My work is about defining function in the same way I would define beauty. I think of objects as vehicles for catalysing the imagination. Function becomes as open to appropriation and interpretation as beauty has always been. Intriguing but curiously familiar shapes demonstrate that omnipresent subjectivity endures in the way the designer and the user/viewer deal with physical representation."
Mathieu Frossard's work will be on display through 28 October at Design Academy Eindhoven.
