1. Alaiia Gujral
Alaiia Gujral lives and works in every corner of her loft in Chicago, often with some blues rolling in the background on her record player. Soaked in the sunshine during the day and peacefully clear at night, the apartment with her two dogs — Huxley and Brutus — was also a place for her creativity and experimentation.
A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in print media, ceramics, and fibers, he is an artist who delights in interdisciplinarity. “It all started with my obsession with indigo in 2012. I wanted to cover all shades of blue — be it fabric, ceramics, or canvas. And that’s where my love for multimedia really developed, ”she explains. Since then, Gujral has designed immersive environments for music shows, including one in which he hung shiny indigo-dyed organza; sewed the fabric into a large functional bag, a piece of “wearable art” as he describes it; and dyed and molded with porcelain to look like textured fabric. “I want to mess up a hundred times, do weird things with indigo and see where it takes me!” he says in a statement that fully gets his way of being.
Her apartment is also a collage of connections. A vibrant combination of wood and metal, it’s full of things that speak volumes about Gujral. He has taught his favorite art books, including Savage Beauty, a catalog of fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s iconic exhibition at The Met from 2011; a monograph by American artist Daniel Arsham whom he considers a hero; at Boys Don’t Cry, a zine by avant-garde rapper and songwriter Frank Ocean overflowing with expressive talent. The shoulders with the collection of records are one-off lamps and pieces of furniture taken from vintage and second-hand shops, another of Gujral’s charms, as well as art in the walls, mostly made by his artist friends including photographs by Jason Peterson, paintings by graffiti artists Lefty Out There and Dont Fret. “Despite everything, the apartment has a chic neutral aesthetic,” he admits.
