In Gilding The Lily, artist and designer Chris Wolston reclaims the ornamental flourish of Art Nouveau as a vehicle for transformation and abstraction. Drawing from the movement’s core interpretive framework—the stylization of natural forms into decorative motifs—this new body of sculptural furniture reimagines ornament not as excess, but as aspiration.

The exhibition features sand-cast aluminum and bronze works alongside wool wall tapestries woven in Morocco and richly upholstered forms. Highlights include a French mohair sofa tufted with polished aluminum daisy buttons; a pair of crude aluminum Stickley-inspired chairs upholstered in William Morris fabric; a tulip-style bronze side table; and a monumental credenza constructed from thousands of welded wax daisy forms using the lost-wax technique. Throughout, Yarumo leaf textures, floral abstractions, and mythic symbols appear across dining tables, lighting, and a decorative human-scale sculpture.

Crafted from physically demanding materials—bronze, aluminum, ceramic, wool—each piece tests the limits of its own making. Surfaces bloom, bend, rupture. Forms behave as if in drag: adorned, exaggerated, transformed.

The title nods to a critique by art historian Irene Sargent, who in 1902 warned of a “crisis in decorative art” brought on by Art Nouveau’s seductive “wavy line.” Over a century later, Gilding The Lily revisits this moment not with restraint, but with reverence. These works do not shy away from embellishment—they revel in it, offering a new kind of decorative lyricism rooted in material complexity, historical dialogue, and ecstatic transformation.