Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Is it art? Is it furniture? Is there a distinction? These are questions designer Brian Thoreen answers in his provocative work, which ranges from curved glass tables, weighed down by cast bronze blocks, to blown glass “melted” over angular handcrafted metalwork. Sometimes his designs are obviously quite functional and categorical, other times artistic merit outweighs function. Either way, his works highlight and draw on the power inherent in his chosen materials, and Thoreen thrives in the spaces in between.
Thoreen had explored a range of disciplines and mediums before committing to furniture design. He filled his 20s with experimentation with painting, fabrication, building, welding, architecture and fashion — but he always came back to making furniture. Thoreen studied painting in community college, though much of his talent in design is a culmination of experience he amassed through jobs along the way. He worked as an art installer at Kayne Griffin Gallery, a carpenter at Southern California architecture firm Marmol Radziner and also founded his own gallery MASA and experimental glassmaking collective, VISSIO.
While Thoreen has found a renewed vigor since relocating to Mexico in 2017, the 1960s and '70s Los Angeles art scene informs much of his work. Thoreen learned firsthand from many artists of the era including James Turrell, Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell and Robert Irwin. These visual artists, who were associated with the period's Light and Space movement, explored light in relation to geometric abstraction and minimalism, which resurface as themes in Thoreen’s furniture.
Thoreen’s Cantilever tables and Reaching Console in his sculptural Unsettled collection, which was exhibited at Patrick Parrish’s gallery in New York City in 2017, feature a sublime marriage of marble, smoked glass and cast bronze, and the components are not held together by the typical hardware associated with these kinds of structures — none of the pieces use fasteners of any kind.
With his prioritization of minimalism and the honesty of the materials, Thoreen endeavored to ensure that his pieces wouldn’t need any fasteners secured by screws to stand on their own, relying instead on what he knew about mass and space (a set of bronze counterweights is doing the heavy lifting on the collection's Console). As such, like each of the designer’s works, they’re striking statement pieces in any space — “unsettled” or not.
On 1stDibs, find a collection of Brian Thoreen decorative objects, storage case pieces and lighting.
2010s Mexican Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Glass
2010s Mexican Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Steel
2010s Mexican Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Steel
2010s Mexican Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Steel
2010s Indian Organic Modern Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Bronze
20th Century European Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Bronze
1920s Vintage Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Art Glass
1920s Vintage Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Art Glass
20th Century Japanese Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Wood
Mid-20th Century Chinese Mid-Century Modern Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Stone, Jade
15th Century and Earlier Antique Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Amethyst, Rock Crystal
20th Century Unknown Organic Modern Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Onyx, Quartz, Agate
1950s Vintage Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Terracotta
1980s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Art Glass, Ceramic
2010s Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Porcelain
21st Century and Contemporary Mexican Brian Thoreen Sculptures
Glass