,Ovo

In 2023 designers Luciana Martins and Gerson de Oliveira celebrate their 31th anniversary heading ,Ovo. The celebrations start with the presentation of the Compasso Armchair, the Equador Line and Quadros Series of Chairs, together with their china pieces (in collaboration with ceramic artist Nydia Rocha).

Four-time winners of awards by Museu da Casa Brasileira, their pieces have been part in chows such as Experimenta in Amsterdam and Projeto Parede at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP). They signed the project of the Café Bienal, one among other institutional public spaces they worked on, and they are responsible for the furniture pieces at the Brazilian Pavilion at the Expo Dubai 2020. The furniture by the duo at the Mário de Andrade Library, in São Paulo, is a highlight of their work.

,Ovo is often featured in international specialized media. In her essay on the & Fork book, published by Phaidon Press, Portuguese curator Guta Moura Guedes states: “An expressive communication ability and a subtle contamination from more artistic universes add more symbolic dimensions to ,Ovo’s work. Their work’s consistency makes this Brazilian design studio one of the most interesting in existence at this time.”

In 2018 and 2020 they were elected as Designers of the Year at the Casa Vogue Design Awards.

In the words of design historian and curator Adélia Borges: “Since they emerged, thirty years ago, Luciana Martins and Gerson de Oliveira have been doing work that is situated in the frontier between design and art. Unafraid to experiment and to open new paths, their creations are smart. Their objects have the power of conciliating concision and an ability to astound.” And more: “Without falling into Modernism’s asepsis like so many others did, like shackles preventing flights of fancy and poetry, furniture pieces and objects created by Luciana Martins e Gerson de Oliveira display clear thought and built; they seek the just, concise, depurated shape of the divine creation they chose to name their studio as profession of faith: ovo [egg]. Just like haikais—concise and surprising—they communicate contemporaneity and simultaneously seem to me predestinated to transcend the time in which they were created.”