Yinka Ilori’s colours light up The Conran Shop

For London Craft Week 2022, The Conran Shop enlisted Yinka Ilori to create a colourful installation showcasing the store’s latest outdoor furniture offering. For this project, Ilori explored the potential of LG’s OLED Evo television, creating eye-shaped sculptures to encase the devices, as well as a series of bold graphics showcased on screen. Alongside the installation, Ilori’s homeware collection (featuring cushions, plates, furniture and rugs) is now on sale at the store.

‘I've been following The Conran Shop for many years, ever since I was studying, and have constantly been inspired by their stores and spaces, and I own an LG TV myself, because of the incredible quality of their screens,’ says Ilori. ‘So when I was approached about this project, I saw a fantastic opportunity to create something new and unique while continuing to push my practice further.’ 

The project’s brief, ‘Light up your World’, was a perfect fit for Ilori’s bright, imaginative and inspiring style. ‘When I began exploring the theme, I immediately started thinking about human eyes and, from a mechanical perspective, the impact that light and emotion has on pupil dilation,’ explains Ilori. ‘Our eyes are such an important part of human connection and communication. When we get excited or happy you can see it in someone’s eyes. In fact, we use the term, “your eyes lit up”. During lockdown, when we were all wearing masks, we had to communicate using our eyes.’

For the project, Ilori studied the iconography and meaning of eyes in different cultures throughout history, also looking at colour theory. This formed the starting point for the installation, featuring a series of circular animated artworks in bold colours that mimic pupil dilation. 

Although multidisciplinary in his practice, this is the first time Ilori has worked on a digital animation. ‘It was a really exciting process to have to think about how we could use the screens to create a playful and fun display,’ he says. ‘Using my interpretation of the theme, I took a 2D graphic artwork and then converted this into a 3D motion graphic that can be viewed on a TV, giving me the opportunity to experiment with the idea of translating pattern and colour into a moving image.’

The final result takes his distinctive visual language in a new direction. He says: ‘I hope that it will intrigue people and bring them a sense of joy and excitement as well as transporting them into a different world.’

INFORMATION

Yinka Ilori’s installation at The Conran shop will be on view until mid-June 2022
yinkailori.com
conranshop.co.uk

ADDRESS

81 Fulham Road
London SW3 6RD

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