Today, we’re celebrating design in the abstract, spotlighting four contemporary artists-designers who excel at manipulating materials to achieve highly expressive, biomorphic forms.

Each in their own way, the handcrafted works of Mattia Biagi, Vincent Pocsik, Lene Tangen, and Kari Mølstad possess a hard to define je ne sais quoi that can’t be ignored.

Effortlessly crisscrossing the worlds of fashion, fine art, and interiors, Mattia Biagi applies his Surrealist sensibility to an array of media, with results that are predictably fantastical, eye-catching, and provocative. The Ravenna-born, LA-based multitalent first gained notoriety in the design world for his series of tar-dipped domestic objects, in which he shrouded familiar forms in an aura of the otherworldly. Earlier this year, for Twentieth Gallery in LA, Biagi introduced plaster into his practice, shaping the ancient pliable material by hand to create ethereal, cloud-like light fixtures and sculptures. “It’s only through the stripping away of society’s veneer and rebuilding the self and world from the dust that’s left,” Biagi explains, “that we truly create unique expressions, unique forms, and a unique existence.” In a recent video for Architectural Digest, fashion model Winnie Harlow showed off the new Biagi plaster piece she’s installed in her home.

Also represented by Twentieth Gallery, Vincent Pocsik works adroitly across a number of handcraft media. Even so, this LA-based artist’s aptitude for sculpting wood into the most complex, unexpected forms is truly startling. Marrying traditional hand carving with digital fabrication techniques, Pocsik transforms lifeless blocks of hardwood into figurative and abstract objects that magically mimic the soft, vulnerable curves, folds, and undulations of human flesh. Often bleaching the wood to a chalky white, the ghostly presence his work exudes is disconcerting—in the most delightful way. Which seems to be the effect that Pocsik has in mind. When asked to pinpoint the purpose of his practice, he reveals that his interests lie in “how the invisible feelings of human life converse with the visible interactions between us and our environment.”

Norwegian glass artist Lene Tangen, represented by contemporary craft gallery Format Oslo, draws inspiration from the arctic environment that surrounds her while freely and intensely experimenting with the limits of her chosen medium to achieve dazzling optical effects. Her goal, she explains, is to “capture the fleeting expressions in the transformation of liquids to frozen forms,” creating shapes that “illustrate organic movement frozen in time and space.” Tangen’s icy sculptures evoke the sublime side of the natural world, inviting us to reflect on forces beyond our control. “At a time when everything happens at a rapid pace,” Tangen says, “I find it interesting to freeze the moment.”

Another stellar talent on the Format Oslo roster, Norwegian glassblower and glass artist Kari Mølstad draws inspiration from natural forms and phenomenon to create undulating, highly textured objects, both functional and sculptural. Masterfully skilled at her craft, at once methodical and intuitive, Mølstad exploits the plasticity of glass to fashion complex contours while also achieving finishes that control and even negate the medium’s innate refracting qualities. As a recent article noted, “her work makes us forget the delicate and fragile material of which it is made, directing our gaze to its intricate, multifaceted, and hypnotic surfaces.” ◆