OXALINO OS Chair

Nicholas Hamilton Holmes often finds inspiration in unorthodox places. For the Canadian furniture maker’s new OXALINO collection, he cites a medley: “old tattoos, meditation, and French Provincial style.” Bearing his emerging studio’s signature tubular forms, the sturdy OS Chair at first seems unassuming, but look closer—the reference points reveal themselves. The meditative quality of human brush strokes induce a calming effect. The alluring imperfections of handicraft, from organic patterns to dye bleeding, recall rudimentary prison tattoos. On the other hand, the blue-and-white finish drums up the casual elegance of a manor house in the French countryside. The hand-woven Danish Cord seat, meanwhile, pays homage to the traditional woodworking methods that serve as the foundation of his studio’s sculptural furnishings. 

Perhaps the most striking feature is the OXALINO pattern. Holmes hand-painted the spiraling decoration with an oxidizing solution onto tannin-rich white oak like zebra stripes, affording the OS Chair a bold, contemporary edge. "It adds energy and extreme graphic qualities, while also being subtle from afar,” Holmes says of the maximalist finish, which embraces nature and artifice in equal measure. “The technique was less chosen, more found.”

Material Combinations