Dominick Leuci

DOMINICK LEUCI

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Todd Merrill & Associates, Inc.

80 Lafayette Street

New York, NY 10013

www.toddmerrillstudio.com

Printed in the United States of America

Catalog Design: Dallas Dunn

DOMINICK LEUCI The Eques Series

published using Lightning Press Totowa, NJ

Self

Todd Merrill

TODD MERRILL STUDIO

Todd Merrill Studio represents an international group of established and emerging artists, each with a singular artistic vision and unprecedented point of view. In creating unique works of collectible design, each artist takes a hands-on approach that intersects contemporary design, fine art, traditional craft techniques, and pioneering innovation.

Individually, through meticulous craftsmanship and rigorous studio experimentation, each has developed leading-edge, proprietary methods that break previously set inherent limitations of conventional materials like wood, metal, plaster, concrete, ceramics, glass, and resin. Their intimate studio approach fosters an atmosphere of creativity where the work rendered significantly bears the hand of the artist.

Collectively the artists are helping to create a new visual vocabulary that advances long-held, established artistic boundaries. Their dynamic, one-of-a-kind, and frequently groundbreaking works contribute to today’s increasingly relevant grey space between art and design.

With the gallery’s support, the artists’ works have entered the collections of major private and public patrons and prestigious museums including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Museum of

Art and Design in New York; the High Museum in Atlanta; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Carnegie Museum of Art in Philadelphia, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

In 2000, Todd Merrill opened Todd Merrill Antiques which quickly became renowned for its glamorous and eclectic mix of twentieth-century furniture and lighting. The pioneering gallery was one of the of the first to promote modernist and postmodernist American studio artisans including Paul Evans, Phillip Lloyd Powell, George Nakashima, Karl Springer, James Mont, Tommi Parzinger, among others.

In 2008, Rizzoli published Merrill’s “Modern Americana: Studio Furniture from High Craft to High Glam”, the first ever authoritative examination of the great studio furniture makers and designers who, from 1940 thru the 1990s defined American high style. To celebrate the tenth anniversary, in 2018 Rizzoli published an expanded edition, adding 60 pages to his original book. This survey of the period continues with two massive additional chapters focused on Women Makers and Showrooms. After the publication of Modern Americana in 2008, Merrill began to shift the focus of the gallery and started the Studio Contemporary program which has today become his primary focus.

DOMINICK LEUCI

After meeting Todd Merrill in 2017, Dominick Leuci proposed the concept of a cohesive collection of LED sculptures derived from nature but incorporating modern design techniques and innovative materials. Leuci’s Eques Series is the first work of its kind to incorporate air-inflated metal forms with LED lighting. He works materials with a sense of alchemy to transform their essence into something new.

The mirror-polished plumes react with both the embedded LEDs and the surrounding ambient light to create a swirling, floating, underwater effect. The technique for painting each individual plume is similar to that used by Jeff Koons, the highest standard available for this type of metal lacquer.

As the works are available by commission, the sculptures can be customized in size and form. Each air-blown plume is individually placed and available in a variety of shapes, sizes, and finishes including mirror polished stainless steel, 24ct gold plated steel, or in a wide range of colors through a process of painting and lacquering. As a lightweight and high strength material, each steel plume combines the elegance of blown glass, the limitless shaping and size capabilities of soft inflatables, and the permanence and durability of metal.

The Eques Series

Dominick Leuci’s inspiration for The Eques Series derived from the mystical guise of sea dragons (Phycodurus Eques). To protect themselves from predators, sea dragons have developed long, leaf-like protrusions as a method of camouflaging themselves. Despite being rigid in nature, their graceful wing-like bodies, which also have the ability to change color, appear as flora, keeping them indistinguishable from seaweed as they move serenely through the water.

Rendered in stainless steel, Leuci’s captivating forms maintain the sea dragon’s elegant look of suspension, movement, and buoyancy. Working with LEDs and stainless steel, each sculptural, air-blown “plume” is set in place to convey a sense of movement. The custom-made plumes reflect light from the body, as well as the surrounding environment, adding deeper layers of surprise as the light around the sculpture changes.

Art Nouveau, Romanticism, and Modernism are all touch points for artist Dominick Leuci in creating the fresh visual lexicon. ‘Producing a mystery’ describes the creative intent behind works which bring an abstract moment into clear form. Balancing the mechanical and organic processes behind creating, Leuci’s designs hover between the natural and man-made.

Having an extensive background in fashion and jewelry design, Dominick incorporates his vision for art and design to create his works. Through his unique imaginary lens, and with an eye always drawn to the Cosmos, Leuci has a gravitational pull to the wonders of our material world and the mysteries of our universe.