In His First Museum Show, Chris Wolston Finds Ecstasy in the Act of Making
Working between Medellín and New York, the artist coaxes clay, wicker, and aluminum into fabulously fun creations that recast ordinary materials as vessels for joyful invention
“Ecstasy” is a peculiar word—at once a drug, a transcendental state, and, in its Greek root, the act of standing “outside oneself.” Walking through Chris Wolston’s first museum show, “Profile in Ecstasy” at Dallas Contemporary, it becomes clear the Providence, Rhode Island–born artist achieves that sensation through fantastical furniture that stretches material boundaries and design’s expressive potential into riotously imaginative realms. Handwoven wicker chairs strike improbably anthropomorphic poses, their wavy limbs frozen mid-gesture; Frankenstein-like chandeliers built from cast aluminum and Murano glass shimmer with candy-colored debris; a bronze credenza sprouting daisies with rainbow patinas echoes the mosaic ceiling of Gaudí’s Casa Milà; and handwoven rugs depicting calla lilies emerge from Beni Rugs’ atelier in Marrakech. “I don’t ever want to present the same thing twice,” Wolston says matter-of-factly.
“Profile in Ecstasy” cruises through the past decade of Wolston’s experimental practice, tracing how he continually tests new materials and techniques to see how far he can push them. That foundation took shape early. While studying glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, he took a winter-session course at the Kokrobitey Institute in Accra, immersing himself in Ghanaian craft practices. After graduating, he earned a Fulbright fellowship to study pre-Columbian ceramics in Colombia, where he began shaping terracotta chairs from clay sourced at local brick factories. “I was fascinated by how terra cotta existed in contemporary and historical contexts—homes built out of terra cotta, brick factories baking them in industrial kilns, or others mixing clay by hand on the floor with a horse,” he recalls. “That’s what I was thinking about before my practice began.”
That experience proved formative, and Wolston soon established an eight-person studio in Medellín, where he now spends his time when not in New York. There, he began collaborating with family-run artisanal workshops on bespoke furniture crafted using centuries-old techniques. Whether at weaving workshops or aluminum foundries, Wolston first observes how materials function and then lets his imagination run freely. “What usually comes to me is asking how we can apply materials differently,” he says. “Wicker has been around for centuries, throughout most cultures in the world. How can we do something different?”
Wolston discovered that mimbre—a type of wicker from the Colombian Amazon—becomes pliable when soaked in water. “When you’re working with it wet, it’s like applying a skin,” he says, a realization that sparked his signature Nalgona series of expressive wicker chairs. He first sculpts tentative chair forms in clay, using them as blueprints before welding frames for the wicker to be woven around. Crafting chairs with wiggly arms and rotund backsides can perplex master artisans accustomed to making wicker sofas for clients commissioning patio furniture, but Wolston gently guides them into new creative territory. “It’s unusual and more complex to weave these forms and it takes more time and skill,” he notes. The risk has paid off—the Nalgona chairs have since become an unmistakable emblem of his studio. He has since taken the craft even further, fashioning giant amphoras in which wicker and rough-hewn aluminum seem to dissolve into one another.
Beyond wicker, Wolston’s practice expands across aluminum, ceramic, bronze, and textiles. His experiments in these mediums are no less bold or inventive. Many of the aluminum pieces at “Profile in Ecstasy” utilize a foam-burnout method, a technique similar to lost-wax casting that Wolston describes as “a super low-tech, down-and-dirty process that’s not at all refined.” His team first builds a steel armature, sews foam around it, and buries the model in sand at a nearby foundry. Liquid aluminum is poured into the sand mold, burning out the foam all at once. This technique lends the frame of his Dear Sergeant Stickley chair a crude, stitched texture softened with floral William Morris upholstery. Nearby, beguilingly large ceramic chairs push clay’s physical and technical limits, each one coiled and built by hand from material excavated from the mountains around Medellín and treated with bronze-like patinas. Their manifold layers dry between stages before being festooned with floral accoutrements and metallic insects.
“Medellín makes this kind of exchange possible,” Wolston says. “People are generous with their workshops and knowledge.” Likewise, he doesn’t shy away from revealing his process. Accompanying the dozens of works on display are videos by his husband, filmmaker David Sierra, who has lovingly documented how Wolston’s creations have taken shape over the past decade. One film compiles footage from the wicker studio and aluminum foundry, offering an up-close look at the labor-intensive processes that give furniture its flair. In one scene, artisans anodize an aluminum lamp by dipping its components into acid and pigment baths, producing a mesmerizing sunset-hued gradient whose hand-chiseled surface refracts light at varying intensities. Another ventures inside Sierra’s mind, animating Nalgona chair silhouettes into an epic collage. “Seeing all these works side by side backed with the visuals and the soundtrack really feels like we’re entering into a different universe,” Wolston says.
For curator Glenn Adamson, watching Sierra’s films clarified that each of Wolston’s pieces performs as a character. “He felt [my work] needed to be exhibited on catwalk extensions,” Wolston says. They stretch through the gallery in a cross-shaped formation. At their intersection stands his most euphoric work yet—a radiant sand-cast aluminum fountain modeled after Jean-Paul Goude’s iconic photograph of Grace Jones on the cover of her 1985 album Island Life. “They were each other’s muse,” Wolston says. “There were parallels between this relationship and my relationship with David, so it seemed right to have her at the center.”
Wolston’s inventive command of craft has made him one of the most sought-after figures in the collectible design market, where he debuts new work with the bicoastal design gallery The Future Perfect. Unshaken by technical hurdles and radiating an infectious joy, his momentum shows no sign of slowing. When asked what material he hopes to explore next, he answers without hesitation: “I’d love to do a textile collection so I can work with my own upholstery fabric.” That exuberance propels his constant search for new ways to make and imagine. “You don’t need state-of-the-art resources to make beautiful things,” he advises. “You can be resourceful and inventive with what’s around you. When you change your perspective on making, anything is possible.” Wolston proves it with every new experiment.
“Chris Wolston: Profile in Ecstasy” will be on view at Dallas Contemporary (161 Glass Street, Dallas) until February 1, 2026.