Design Botany

The end of summer may be nigh, but West Hollywood is in full bloom under the perennial sunlight of the Eric Buterbaugh Gallery, located in the business headquarters of floral and perfume designer Eric Buterbaugh. On view, from August 25 until September 11, is an enchanting site-specific display of sculptural objects by Los Angeles-based artist and furniture maker Chuck Moffit. Titled with the Promise of Nectar, the show features five statement pieces that fuse Moffit’s signature handcrafted metalwork with the essence of raw, natural beauty—akin to Buterbaugh’s floral creations that fill this mid-century-modern oasis. In his first solo show at the gallery, Moffit takes on the role of a conceptual botanist, propagating forms and materials to be fused with  interventions of floral arrangements and decadent scents derived from Buterbaugh’s exclusive fragrance collection.

Devised in collaboration with Blackman Cruz—a destination showroom for offbeat décor and curiosities on Hollywood’s Highland Avenue —with a Promise of Nectar conjures a fantastical brutalist meadow: a meandering landscape of geometric forms in steel and cast bronze. Moffit’s five-arm chandelier in stained glass and Sun floor lamp in steel and bronze illuminate a center table embellished with cut flowers and his Tibernus coffee table fitted with a constellation of turquoise glass inlays. Completing the tableau is a sensational purple velvet-upholstered tête-à-tête chair, called Dioscuri, after the mythological Greek twin brothers. Melding art, design, and nature, it evokes a cluster of petals in the midnight light mounted on a monumental steel base.

These functional art pieces demonstrate Moffit’s unique ability to move between the realms of art and design, as also seen in his earlier collaborations at the Hammer Museum, Andrea Zittel’s High Desert Test Grounds, and the Torrance Art Museum.