marian bantjes: manicured chairs for droog

this year, dutch design company droog decided to take advantage of the numerous liquidation items which are put up for auction by the hundreds of companies that go bankrupt in the netherlands each month. the result? ‘saved by droog‘, a project in which droog invited 14 international designers to reconsider the 5135 items they collected as raw material for some creative intervention.

1 of the 80 ‘manicured chairs’

canadian graphic designer and illustrator marian bantjes, was among the designers invited to take part in the project. from the lot, she selected two items: a single wooden table and 80 wooden folding chairs. what did she decide to do with her pieces? her idea was a bit of a wacky one:

‘I had just had my fingernails done in LA for the first time, and I was fascinated with how quickly and nicely the manicurist put designs on my nails. so I proposed to droog that we get 80 manicurists and get one each to decorate a chair. incredibly, they went for it. in the end there were only 4 or 5 manicurists, but still…‘ – marian bantjes

detail of a chair with a floral motif

the collection of 80 chairs appropriately entitled ‘manicured chairs’, were each painted with a variety of designs. when discussing with the manicurists on what to paint, bantjes outlined a few instructions. in terms of colors, she requested:

bright colours: pink, red, yellow, etc. opaque colours: white or nail polishes with a lot of white in them: light blues, greens, etc. neon colours (a whole chair in neon colours would be cool: it would glow in black light!) metallic colours: the more shiny-metallic they are, the more they will stand out on the dark surface. silver, copper, glitter… that the manicurists can choose a colour ‘theme’ or make the designs multi-coloured.

manicurist federica painting a pink flower motif onto one of the chairs

regarding motifs, bantjes wanted the designs to be kept simple and easy. she made suggestions of flowers: 3- , 4-, and 5-petaled flowers, or little grasses, stars, abstract things with shapes and dots (which she particularly liked). she also tried to encourage the manicurists to perhaps paint designs that they have become particularly skilled at such as a little butterfly or ladybug. the only premise was to keep the designs small and simple as if they were being painted onto a fingernail…her preference was for the artists to pick one or two little designs and just repeat the it over and over again, covering the surface of the chair. no big design pictures, no scenes or designs that would not fit on a finger nail. that the final outcome should look pretty and delicate.

up close view of federica painting the flowers onto the chair

‘manicured chairs’ was the first project that bantjes has done in which she was only involved in the concept and not in the actual designing phase:

‘…this is very new for me because I only conceived and gave directions for the work. I know many people work like this but I’ve never done anything before that I haven’t actually put my hands on in some way.(…)”

view of some of the ‘manicured chairs’