Superhouse is honored to present Colorama, a two-artist show with studio furniture legends Tom Loeser and Wendy Maruyama.

Please join us at Index for a conversation with the artists about the exhibition (on view 11/14–1/11), led by Tiffany Jow.

In Colorama, the trailblazing artists return to their radical roots, transforming American fine art furniture. Now, Maruyama, who recently celebrated a career retrospective at Fresno Art Museum, and Loeser exhibit new works embellished with bold colors that hold all the finesse and sophistication only achieved from decades of making. While furniture artists today enjoy the freedom to choose material, technique, and finish, the duo’s break from traditional woodworking and finishing techniques over 40 years ago was tantamount to a revolutionary act.

Tom Loeser is a renowned member of the Studio Craft movement. He designs and builds one-of-a-kind functional and dysfunctional objects that are often carved and painted. Loeser looks to the history of design and object-making as a starting point for developing new forms and meanings. Beginning in 1981, the artist has exhibited his work globally, including at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris, France) and Peter Joseph Gallery (New York, NY). He was head of the wood/furniture area at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from 1991-2020. Loeser holds a BA from Haverford College, a BFA from Boston University’s Program in Artisanry, and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Loeser has received four Visual Artist Fellowship Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Selected public collections that hold his work include the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, USA), The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (New York, USA), Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, USA), Mint Museum (Charlotte, USA), The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, USA), and others. See more.

Furniture maker, artist, and educator Wendy Maruyama has been making innovative work for over 40 years. While her early work combined ideologies of feminism and traditional craft objects, her newer work moves beyond the boundaries of traditional studio craft and into the realm of social practice. Wendy Maruyama has been a woodworking and furniture design professor for over 30 years. She is among the first two women to graduate with a Master's in furniture making from Rochester Institute of Technology. Maruyama has exhibited her work nationally with solo shows in New York City, San Francisco, Scottsdale, Indianapolis, Savannah, and Easthampton. She has exhibited internationally in Tokyo, Seoul, and London. National and international permanent museum collections hold Maruyama's work, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, England), Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA), Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (Launceston, Australia), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, USA), Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, USA), Museum of Art and Design (New York, USA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, USA), Mint Museum (Charlotte, USA), and Fuller Craft Museum (Brockton, USA). Maruyama is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the California Civil Liberties Public Education Grant, 2010; several National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Visual Artists; the Japan/US Fellowship; and a Fulbright Research Grant to work in the UK. In 2024, the American Craft Council awarded her the Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship. Maruyama's first solo museum exhibition, Wendy Maruyama: A Sculptural Survey, is currently on view at the Fresno Art Museum, California, through January 5, 2025. See more.

Tiffany Jow is editor-in-chief of the design journal Untapped. She has previously been the marketing director for Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, where she contributed to its winning proposal for Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center, and the design editor at Surface magazine. From 2009 through 2011, she lived in London, where she worked on the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990,” curated by Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt. She has also served as a guest critic at the School of Visual Arts, New York University, and Pratt Institute.

Superhouse is a New York-based gallery specializing in art furniture and design, showcasing contemporary and historical works. Founded and directed by Stephen Markos, the gallery’s programming is deeply rooted in a profound understanding and appreciation of design and art history. The gallery stages exhibitions and events exploring material, technology, function, and narrative, focusing on contemporary sculpture, 1980s art furniture, and craft. Superhouse’s roster of artists and designers spans Africa, the Americas, and Europe, offering the gallery’s community diverse global perspectives.

Untapped is a design journal that looks back to look forward. Its stories identify important knowledge from the near and distant past for improving the built environment, and contextualize it for today and tomorrow.