Born in Rotterdam in 1986, Rick Tegelaar graduated with honours from the ArtEZ Arnhem product design department in 2011. Since then he works independently from his studio and workshop in Arnhem.
Rick likes to work with undervalued materials such as wire mesh and waste wood. By re-examining these materials, new applications of the materials arise. The challenge lies in finding new forms, qualities, and aesthetics as opposed to those with which we are all too familiar.
By looking at the products and materials we are surrounded by in an unbiased way, opportunities to research into new possibilities of known materials and processes are created. Rick often develops new machines, tools, and techniques for each new project to be able to retrieve new properties from a given material. Working with a material in different ways, using different methods, will automatically create a new aesthetic as well.
Take for example the Meshmatics collection: “The start of the project was one of the most banal materials I could think of: chicken wire, ” he explains. “I built my own machine to form the chicken wire with precision: an aesthetic and efficient structure was the result. The material is shown with a new perspective. ”
Aesthetics are often wrongly neglected within industrial processes. In his work, Rick tries to show in what way a new aesthetic can be achieved in industrial materials by making small changes in the methods of production.
Rick’s design for the Filigree Floor Lamp is produced by Dutch firm Moooi.