Jeremy Anderson's spirited new furniture show proves that fancy can be fun

Fanciness is something that’s resonated with Jeremy Anderson since he was a young boy growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the 1980s. He remembers his mom gingerly removing cube-shaped crystals that hung off the family chandelier and, with characteristic Midwest practicality, placing them in the dishwasher for a cleaning. He remembers noticing the silky damask patterns on mattresses and yearning to play dress-up with dolls.

‘Boys don’t play with dolls,’ Anderson recalls of the prevailing attitudes of the time. Now, with a solo show of lighting, furniture, mirrors and vessels on view in New York with the prestigious London design dealers Gallery Fumi, ‘I am giving myself permission to tap into that energy in a way I really couldn’t,' he says.

The show, titled ‘Held In Light,’ is Anderson’s largest solo presentation to-date. He works primarily in ceramics, a medium he discovered while still in high school. After co-founding the renowned lighting studio Apparatus, Anderson recently returned to ceramics full-time, a career transition that’s allowed the W*400 designer to plumb even deeper creative impulses.

Anderson’s work takes familiar objects and furnishings and transforms them into something more otherworldly and whimsical. Rotund stoneware vessels are ornamented with blooming petals and fins that give them a friendly, creature-like sensibility. Ceramic chandeliers and lamps are ornamented with ceramic beads, a move that evokes traditional lighting while giving them a delightful anthropomorphic quality, like a swinging fringe haircut.

‘I am very inspired by classic forms and shapes. It’s about putting my creative voice on those shapes and making them feel more modern and weird,’ Anderson says.

Gallery Fumi’s founders took notice. For co-owner Sam Pratt, who grew up in Sierra Leone, it was the hand-made quality of Anderson’s work and their universal ability to stir up memories that gave it a particular resonance. ‘There’s an unusual sculptural thing [inherent to the work]. I also see something African about them,’ he says, adding ‘Just as important is Jeremy the person.’

For the ‘Held in Light’ show, Anderson has amped up the scale of his work with a selection of 21 pieces that include a dining table, cabinet and a daybed. Each features a bronze frame, cast to appear at once delicate and brawny, and embedded ceramic slabs painted in Anderson’s signature, meditative stripes.

One of the most eye-catching pieces is a new daybed that blends fantasy with a certain pomp. It features a French horsehair mattress covered in a silky Zak + Fox fabric (a gussied up version of a traditional mattress) and bolster cushions fashioned from a 19th-century homespun fabric.

The works are displayed as part of Gallery Fumi’s New York residency at Gallerie 56, an exhibition space in the podium of Herzog & de Meuron’s ‘Jenga’ tower at 56 Leonard Street. In a full circle moment, Anderson would often drive past the building when commuting to his studio in Brooklyn.

‘So much of what I make is tapping into memory and being able to play in a way I didn’t feel like I was able to when I was young,’ Anderson explains.

‘That’s why the making process and being hands-on is so important to me,’ he adds.’ That’s what it’s all about.’

'Held in Light' is on view at Gallery Fumi's New York residency at 56 Gallerie through 3 July, 2026.