Underrated art markets: the case for collecting design
From ceramics to resin, the makers turning design into the most compelling corner of the art market
Sometimes I sit down to write and have zero ideas, despite having a list of topics I actually want to cover. Other times — like today — I have too many and can’t decide where to start. So I went with the first thing in my idea bank: emerging collectible design.
The idea came naturally out of the Underrated Markets series. Design and craft feel like a genuine extension of that conversation — it is, after all, a form of art (even if some people like to disagree). And yet it often gets separated from painting and sculpture, treated as a different category rather than part of the same world. Statistically, there are significantly more fine art collectors than collectible design collectors — but that’s changing, and the field is slowly getting the serious attention it deserves. We won’t get into that debate today.
What I will say is that I love when art and design co-exist and overlap. And practically speaking, it’s also a wonderful entry point into collecting. A design piece can be easier to live with than a painting — a painting feels like it demands something from you, like it wants a considered context and a perfectly curated room around it. A great design object just quietly belongs.
Earlier this year I went to Collect art fair in London — and yes, I’m aware I never wrote about it here, shame on me. But today I’m including some of the names that impressed me most there, alongside others I think are worth knowing. This is an introductory mix across different materials and mediums — ceramics, textile, wood, metal, resin. I have plenty more names to dive into individually (ceramics alone could fill several issues), but this felt like the right place to start.
Jihyun Kim — ceramics
If you haven’t come across Jihyun Kim yet, you’re in for a treat. The Seoul-born, London-based ceramist has developed a technique she calls “gloop glaze” — and yes, it’s exactly as wonderfully weird as it sounds. Rather than using glaze as decoration, she makes it structural, letting it connect separate ceramic elements as it melts and moves in the kiln. The results are these gravity-defying, multi-coloured vessels that feel genuinely magical. Her Salty Fairy Ring series draws on a Korean superstition from her grandmother — a jar of salt by the front door to keep evil spirits out — merged with the folklore of fairy rings. It’s personal, it’s poetic, and it’s the kind of origin story that makes you love the work even more. Keep a close eye on her.
Amelia Dennigan — textile
Amelia Dennigan spent seven years as an economist before deciding she’d rather spend her time doing something she actually loved. The result? ACRU, her New York-based studio, where she creates large-scale thread paintings — and yes, she calls them paintings, not embroidery, because that’s exactly what they are. Inspired by Pre-Raphaelite woodland scenes, her works are stitched in silk and wool, dense with jewel-toned colour and extraordinary detail. She’s self-taught, which I think is part of what makes them so distinctive — there’s no formal art school aesthetic at play here, just a completely original sensibility. Her annual shows sell out. Enough said.
Morten Løbner Espersen — ceramics
This one is for the ceramics obsessives — and honestly, once you see his work, you might become one. Danish ceramist Morten Løbner Espersen has spent decades mastering glaze chemistry, only to deliberately break all the rules he learned. He works from a studio on Copenhagen’s harbour, throwing simple vessel forms and then layering them in extraordinarily complex, often excessive glazes — oozing, cracked, volcanic, electric. He describes his approach as “mastering errors to perfection,” which I find both completely mad and deeply admirable. His work is in the V&A, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and the Boijmans van Beuningen. If you’re serious about collecting ceramics, this is a name you need to know.
