SEBASTIAN BRAJKOVIC
Sebastian Brajkovic, born in Amsterdam in 1975 to a Dutch-Indonesian mother and a Croatian-Italian father, began to create furniture by transforming and mutating archetypal shapes into new forms, often using contemporary technologies. Brajkovic’s work transcends temporal boundaries, reinterpreting the past through the lens of the future. As he states, “truly innovative and functional objects and ideas unite the future, present and past.”
Brajkovic’s formative training began at Amsterdam’s meubelvakschool, where he studied traditional cabinet-making before enrolling at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Under the guidance of influential figures such as Gijs Bakker, Hella Jongerius, and Jurgen Bey (with whom he later interned at Studio Makkink & Bey), Brajkovic cultivated a practice rooted in both conceptual and material exploration. It was here that he developed his signature vernacular, furniture stretched, contorted, and manipulated, yet never severed from its classical origins. As Gareth Williams of the Royal College of Art observed, “The classic proportions of each chair seem to be enhanced rather than destroyed by the designer’s intervention.”
Upon graduating in 2006, Brajkovic debuted his now-iconic Lathe series. These pieces, conceived through digital design and traditional craftsmanship, offered a radical reinterpretation of turned furniture, where movement, form, and memory were fused into sculptural coherence. The impact was immediate and enduring. In 2018, Brajkovic joined David Gill Gallery with his inaugural piece: Banquette (2018), which preceded his first solo exhibition at the Gallery in September 2019. “In my study on the expression of movement in furniture,” he explains, “I’ve focused on how a human body folds around its waist, and so does this banquette, expressing the body, carrying the body and visualizing a soul”. While Brajkovic incorporates digital technology in his design process, his work remains deeply rooted in the physicality of the human form, using the body not only as inspiration but as a structural and conceptual guide.
The work of Sebastian Brajkovic is part of major public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas; and Louise Blouin Foundation, London. His work has also been exhibited by Vonderau Museum, Germany; SCAD Lacoste, Savannah College of Arts and Design, France; Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina; Savannah College of Arts and Design, Lacoste; Chimei Museum, Taiwan; Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City; Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco; Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; College of Wooster Art Museum, Ohio; and Gregg Museum of Art and Design, North Carolina.
WORKS
