By: Jack Stanley
Photographer: Ben Awin
Designer: Jade Chung
studio visits
studio visits
If there’s one Studio Arhoj piece you’ve seen, it’s probably the Ghost. A simple earthenware cone, semi-glazed in a range of colors and finished with eyes, the Ghost has become the Copenhagen-based studio’s calling card over recent years; it’s stocked in almost 200 stores across the globe and regularly pops up in Instagram images from around the world. “I saw on Hudson Mohawke’s Instagram yesterday that there was a Ghost on the shelf,” explains Anders Arhoj (pronounced Arh-hoy), who founded the studio in 2013. “It’s a product you can’t really analyze out of a target group. It just popped up in a session one afternoon. We can’t explain why they’ve become such a global success, it’s all over the world.”
For Arhoj, there are a number of possible reasons why the Ghost has become so successful. One of the key factors is its size, which Arhoj explains makes it the ideal keepsake for tourists: “When I’m traveling, I like to buy small beautiful things,” he continues. “Everyone can fit it in their suitcase.” The Ghost also works as an entry point into the world of Studio Arhoj. On one hand, it is an easy way to see the hand-made quality the studio champions, while on the other hand, it also neatly sums up the Japanese-inspired aesthetic of the Danish label.
Step Inside the Playful World of Studio Arhoj
Studio Arhoj
Copenhagen, Denmark
arhoj.com
A lot of the ones that aren't detailed are these scary monsters. What's the story behind these subjects?
“Fusing Japanese and Danish design have always been in an undercurrent in my work.”
Anders Arhoj
I like the way you asked that question. A lot of the figures are sort of abstractions. A lot of them don't have a face. A lot of them are just a flat color, a paint stain or a splatter of paint and just the way that that soaks into the canvas. Moments of abstraction are just as important in the paintings as the detailed faces. So there's really a back and forth to me in creating a kind of balance between what can the paint do on its own as like an abstract element and where do some of these figures become more rendered or they become sort of more familiar, more human, and more detailed. So that's a mysterious thing for me.
How do you select which subjects to paint?
Sometimes I'll be working in a particular face for quite a while, and then get to a point where I just block it out with one solid color. It seems like all the work that went into sort of trying out different details and different layers just sort of leads to a color decision. Then other times, it's really intentional and specific. Like the way I'm starting these new paintings lately, they usually start with couples that are staring into each other’s eyes, they're having a little moment of romance or kissing.
If these subjects stem from human emotions, what kinds of emotions are you emphasizing now in your works?
How long have you been in this studio?
Arhoj’s Japanese influence is also referenced in some of the glazes used on the pieces. One of the most popular releases has been the Tokyo Series, which will be complemented by the upcoming Edo Series. “It’s all cast in white porcelain and glazed in very bold colors inspired by the streets of Tokyo,” explains Arhoj of the Tokyo Series, although the Edo Series will differ. “Edo is the old name for Tokyo. It’s the same city, but it’s the old world and the new world. You can see that aesthetic here, it’s much more earthy and rustic, and much less ‘pop.’”
Since Arhoj established the studio, the team has grown to 13 and operates from a studio and retail space near Copenhagen harbor. Despite the size of the team, the creative process remains the same. “It can take five minutes or several years,” explains Arhoj about the ideas behind new pieces. All new ideas come from internal meetings, which are followed by initial sketches and experimenting with new glazes and new shapes.
“If it dries too fast, it cracks. It has to be very slow,” explains Arhoj, of the design process, which begins with clay being wedged and thrown, before an extensive drying time. “You have to go and look at the clay every day, constantly nursing it like little children because a lot can happen. If it’s suddenly very moist or very dry outside it affects the clay in here. You constantly have to be on your feet.” After they’ve dried, the pieces are fired for the first time. Heating the pieces to 900 degrees Celsius (approx. 1650 Fahrenheit) turns the clay into ceramics, and allows them to be glazed. Later, they will be fired again to 1260 Celsius (2300 Fahrenheit), before being cooled for another 48 hours.
I've been in this studio for nine years. I first moved to New York back in 1999. I had a cheap apartment in the Lower East Side and I was painting in my bedroom for a number of years and waiting tables and bartending. Before I came to New York, I was a biology major. I graduated college and decided to be an artist. I had people telling me the place to go was New York. 20 years later, here I am.
When did you start showing your work at exhibitions?
I started exhibiting my work in New York in like 2004 at a gallery in Williamsburg, then went onto a couple different galleries in Chelsea where I've worked over the years. I've been showing in Copenhagen and recently Hong Kong.
Tell us about your crazy sock art.
The glazes are the most eye-catching element of the creative process and are developed through an extensive process of trial-and-error to create the desired color. “It’s a very long process,” adds Arhoj, explaining the “line blend” system of mixing different proportions of materials. “It’s working in the blind in the beginning and it’s a lifelong study,” he continues. “You’re never done. Some ceramicists used to take 20 years to have the perfect glaze.”
Overall, the process of creating Studio Arhoj’s ceramic pieces is a blend of experimentation and expertise. Despite all of the repeat attempts many of the formulas for the glazes are stored on the “rainbow recipe wall,” which records how each item is made. “How long to dip it in the glaze, what other colorings it needs, density,” explains Arhoj. “Even though we experiment a lot we still have to have some order, a lot of things can go wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s very much about knowing your materials as well, otherwise, bad things can happen.”
Now six years since Studio Arhoj was born, the small ceramics label is reaching around the world. The brand is stocked in hundreds of locations around the world -- including galleries and retailers such as Goodhood, KITH and the renowned Louisiana Museum of Modern Art -- and continues to spread across social media. If Arhoj can’t explain the near-ubiquity of the Ghosts, he has some theories why the studio has become so successful. “I’ve never really grown up,” he explains, “I think it’s staying fresh and curious and not settling for something you like and staying with that always. Constantly new, new, new, new.”
Studio Arhoj recently dropped a new limited-edition Fire Lab collection of its Koin Katsu sculptures. Each piece is a reusable money bank constructed from red stoneware clay, and finished with a blue-green glaze. Head to the Studio Arhoj web store to get your hands on a sculpture.
Describe the process behind your canvas paintings.
The process in these is stretching raw canvas and then having the raw canvas on the floor and wetting the whole entire canvas with a film of water and matte medium. It makes a thin film for the pigments to really disperse and to travel around the canvas. So I'll give myself one long day of having the canvas on the floor. The way I apply the paint is I stick paint brushes on pool cues and just walk around the canvas and sort of draw into the canvas with the paintbrush on a pool cue. So where you see a broad mark of the red that's just really spread like that, that might be just like one fat brush stroke.
Your color palette is so vivid. How do select the tones for each artwork?
First, I like using colors that bleed and give you a real bright luminosity, so it's these bright yellows, oranges, and magenta. Then, I start working those vivid colors into flesh tones. Finally, I incorporate some darks, like the really deep blues or a Payne's gray. There's a lot of balance between dark and light. A balance between the luminosity of color paired with traditional flesh tones.
So Aaron, what informs your work?
Arhoj founded Studio Arhoj after a career as a graphic designer and character developer in children’s television. “I quit my job in 2005 and moved to Tokyo to try something completely different,” explains Arhoj. “I came back full of ideas, and since then it’s just been an undercurrent in my design, fusing Japanese and Danish design.” Arhoj decided to combine these influences using ceramics, due to the medium’s permanence. “I was tired of sitting in front of a screen, designing a character and then it would be gone in a year or two. All the work I did 15 years ago has completely evaporated,” he remembers. “Now when I design a product it might be in someone’s kitchen for 50 years. I like the longevity of the material.”
Characters are not just used on the Ghost, but run throughout Studio Arhoj’s output, which includes more traditional products such as vases, bowls and wall hangings. “I think the fusion between the raw clay and the Danish/Japanese-inspired character design is a fun juxtaposition,” continues Arhoj. Despite working with playful iterations, Arhoj is keen to point out that the brand is not meant for children. “It’s basically a grown-up brand with character design in it, not a kids brand at all,” he explains. “When we do character design, it’s never super cute, it’s always melancholic, or dark, or brutal sometimes.”
Arhoj believes that uniting traditional Japanese and Danish design aesthetics makes sense, considering the overlap between the two. “We’re really in love with each other design-wise,” he explains of the two countries. “One of the reasons is the approach to the materials, we don’t have a tradition to cover them.” Studio Arhoj also references the Japanese influence by embracing imperfection -- a nod to the philosophy of Wabi-Sabi -- choosing to leave some portions of the pieces unglazed.
How has your work evolved over the years?
I was doing reverse painted acrylic polymer peel paintings for a long time, and those were hyper-detailed and all super hard-edged and super meticulous. It got to a point with that where I guess around like 2012, I wanted to start doing something more visceral and more painterly and less sort of slick.
Any advice for aspiring artists?
Good advice is work a lot, experiment a lot, and see a lot of art. Find out who the artist is who you really admire and what do you like about their work, what can you bring into the work, but also how can you experiment with materials and make paint do something that's your own language. At least for me, that's always been really important to my practice.
“It’s a grown-up brand with character design. When we do character design, it’s always melancholic, or dark, or brutal.”
Anders Arhoj
