PHOTOS: Greg Cox | PRODUCTION: Etienne Hanekom | WORDS: Alma Viviers
This multi-talented creative director of Okha Design & Interiors is a self-proclaimed design addict with an almost compulsive need to make beautiful things.
What drives design at Okha?
Always trying to be better. When you sit in your showroom, as I do, you look at your own products everyday and it’s quite a reality check – a constant process of analysis, editing and evolution.
What inspires your creations?
I’m an aesthetic sponge and absorb everything around me. Anything from travelling to magazines, art, Indie movies and music can inform 3D design. I’m inspired by contemporary applications of traditional handcrafts, and sometimes by materials I’ve never used before, or want to use in a different way.
How do you approach design?
I think the key concept in 21st-century architecture, interiors and design is the idea that people become curators of their own homes. No one wants generic interiors. Homeowners have discerning eyes and carefully select objects from all over the world with different energies and aesthetics to combine in one space. This is what we try to achieve at Okha: a carefully selected offering of the best South African artwork, ceramics and glassware, as well as designer objects from overseas combined with our own unique pieces.
How does your background in Fine Art influence you?
Art is about a pure expression and about provoking an emotional response. Design is first and foremost about comfort and practicality, and only then about visual appeal and creating a possible provocation. As with sculpture, which is about shapes, contours and silhouettes, I try to create a beautiful tension in furniture – chairs, tables and beds should be beautiful from all angles.
Any new developments at Okha?
We have a new concept store at the Cape Quarter that will offer the public a curated sensorial experience. Experimental without being alienating, it will take the form of a complete apartment setting that will show a vision of what good living can be.
• Okha: 021 461 7233, www.okha.com
