His armchairs seem to have sprouted like shimmering mushrooms in the middle of a living room. Liam Lee, a young New York designer, shapes hand-dyed merino wool until it becomes coral or lichen. How does this designer, who in just a few years has gone from digital renderings to museum collections, reinvent the relationship between art and furniture? The answer is at the end of this article.

Nature as the first workshop

Born in New York in 1993 and trained in literature at the University of Chicago, Liam Lee left the world of set design to open his own studio in 2020. There, he observes cells, seeds, and the seabed, reproducing these organic forms in watercolor sketchbooks before translating them into comfortable, three-dimensional pieces. In his view, a chair should breathe like a plant and invite the person who sits in it to travel.

Sculpted wool

Each piece begins with strands of merino wool and mohair dipped in baths of colored acid. The carded fiber is then needle-felted and applied to a cedar frame, a process repeated for weeks until the reliefs evoke coral, cacti, or floating spores. The artist appreciates the suppleness of this material, which can become soft or dense depending on its density and retains the warmth of skin.

From the gallery to the museum

Discovered at the FOG Design+Art fair in San Francisco, Lee has since joined the Patrick Parrish Gallery in New York, which dedicated the exhibition "Catch and Release" to him in 2023. His chairs undulated like seaweed, inviting visitors to reconsider the ordinary chair. That same year, he was a finalist for the Loewe Craft Award, before his work entered the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Denver Art Museum.

Rapid recognition

In less than five years, the international press has praised his biomorphic imagination. Wallpaper * placed it in his USA 300, while Dwell He was named one of 24 new talents to watch. His work is also part of the Cooper Hewitt's Making Home triennial in New York, where his seating is displayed alongside domestic objects exploring the theme of the future of housing.

Poetic and sustainable

Beyond the visual spectacle, Liam Lee champions responsible craftsmanship: the wool comes from American farms and the dyeing process uses minimal water. The furniture he creates achieves the status of sculpture without sacrificing its function: the artist explains that he wants to give life to pieces that appear to have grown without human intervention, blurring the line between manufactured object and living organism.

So, how does Liam Lee transform the way we experience art at home? The answer lies in an armchair whose coral-like silhouette cradles the body while evoking the slow growth of a reef. His seats invite an intimate dialogue with nature, encouraging us to caress it rather than observe it through a window. In this way, the artist confirms that design can be both refuge and adventure, a promise of an everyday life where beauty continues to flourish, again and again.