Roy McMakin

Seattle-based artist, designer, and furniture-maker Roy McMakin creates work that challenges preconceptions about the difference between art and design. Using conceptual underpinnings (such as verbal puns or predetermined color schemes), McMakin’s body of both functional and non-functional work takes as a central theme the idea of the inherently sculptural nature of furniture—and the fact that it is broadly seen as being completely different and separate from sculpture. McMakin’s body of work challenges that separation and leads his viewers and clients to see the objects around them in different ways.

McMakin has had solo presentations at the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. His work has been included in group exhibitions art the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and the Cincinnati Art Museum, among many others.