Master of Wood: Vito Selma
Life must be pretty good when you’re a 20-something furniture designer working out of your own shop in Cebu, Phillipines, and the world has taken keen notice of and a strong liking to your pieces. This is the life of Vito Selma, a master of design, geometry and working with wood to create stunningly complex and beautiful chairs, tabletops, sofas and other pieces.
The Sari by Vito Selma
Vito’s philosophy, that “simplicity is by itself the most complex design,” speaks volumes about the age of clutter in which we live and with which we have become comfortable. With wood, Vito is able to form the complex contours that give his works the simplicity and nakedness that make them so beautiful. He refers to wood as his “partner” – it’s an interesting give and take relationship that results in pieces at which people have known to stare and marvel for long stretches of time. Vito’s work has been commissioned by such heavyweights as Nelson Mandela, the Saudi Royal Family and perhaps most touchingly to his inner artist, the princess of his own homeland. His collections include: Adam & Eve lamps, which he describes as “the perfect co-dependence of two beings” and “borne of a single mould yet different in their manifestations, the collection calls to mind the inseparability of two halves that form a whole”; Ari chairs, coffee tables and room dividers, of which he states, “The places that stay with us insist on manifesting in our everyday landscapes: the linear map of Italian Ari stark in wood against a strange room, making it once again exciting, and familiar; and Paisly chairs, inspired by one very hot chick – “There she would sit, by the breakwater, brown shoulders curving in the sun; white frills of a hiked-up Sunday dress gathered at the knees, a wide-brimmed hat falling in soft folds over her face. A silhouette against the rising sun that would recur always in what I’d do. I never even knew her name. That’s how I’ll remember her.”
Un Deux Trois Table by Vito Selma
Undoubtedly, Vito captures the essence of a rich and inspired life in his work. As a result, he has been recognized with numerous awards including a First Prize Industrial Design Award for his Geo Table at the 2010 DOST National Invention Contest. To learn more about Vito and his works, visit: www.vitoselma.com
