YUXUAN HUANG
Yuxuan Huang (b.1999) is a furniture designer based between Brooklyn, New York, and China. Working with natural materials that bear the marks of time and growth, her practice often employs a collage-like play of reclaimed wood, bamboo, stone, and other found or deconstructed matter. Fascinated by the cut motifs of traditional paper craft, she creates sketch-like furniture and lighting that echo craft legacies while carrying forgotten memories of the past. Her recent collection, My Grandpa Once Taught Me How to Fly a Kite, explores hand-painted paper and shellac as sustainable mediums for illuminating, storytell-ing, and memory keeping.
Born and raised in Chengdu, a mountainous city in southwest China, Huang has long sought subtlety and serendipity in the life of objects. Her passion for conceptual art led her to pursue an interdisciplinary education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied Designed Objects and Photography.
Her interest in space and time deepened into an exploration of form, materiality, and the functionality of furniture and objects. She received her MFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2024.
Huang’s work has been exhibited at SaloneSatellite in Milan, ICFF/WantedDesign Manhattan, Collectible New York, and Alcova Miami, and has been featured and mention in The New York Times, Wallpaper, Galarie, Sight Unseen, AN Interior, and Dezeen.
HOW TO FLY A KITE
HOW TO FLY A KITE
A collection explores memory, craft, and sustainability through bamboo, paper, and reclaimed wood. Building on earlier chapters of Huang’s 2024 collection Lost Stories, where found furniture was reimagined to honor material histories, this series turns inward, drawing from the designer’s childhood memories in southwest China.
Beginning with color studies on Kozo paper-abstract impressions of blossoms in the night, goldfish gliding through quiet water, and faded film stills preserving fleeting moments-these painterly gestures evolve into lighting forms that echo traditional kite and lantern-making.
Motifs of butterflies, swallows, and mountains-symbols deeply rooted in Chinese folk art-emerge as sculptural lamps. Shades are crafted from bamboo and Kozo paper, painted with mineral pigments and ink, and sealed with shellac, a natural resin secreted by insects. Each lamp rests on bamboo poles and stone-like bases assembled from 19th-century salvaged architectural wood sourced in New York City.
Balancing air and weight, softness and structure, the series embodies memory, material reincarnation, and a dialogue with sustainability, framed not only as the reuse of matter but as the preservation of spirit, cultural heritage, and story.
