Arno Declercq
Belgian designer and art dealer, born in 1994, who makes bespoke objects with passion for design, atmosphere, history and craft. Arno grew up in a family with parents who like to work with beautiful brands and objects.His father studied at the Royal Academy of Arts Fashion Department, he worked for Bikkembergs and made his own fashion brands, but has also collected tribal arts for more than 20 years. His mother, who worked with his father from the beginning, bought a shoe store in 2010 where they sold brands as Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester, Maison Martin Margiela.
With the interest in beauty he learned from his parents, Arno studied interior design, after learning a lot about materials and with great knowledge of history he designed interiors and opened his own gallery for ethnographic art and design. After a year he closed the gallery and started his own brand of rough bespoke items which he launched in May 2017.
Each piece is unique because it is entirely handcrafted by him. Made of tropical hardwood called Iroko this he discovered after one of his many trips to West Africa interested in voodoo arts. In these strange tribal arts, the wood "Iroko" is used in many objects, according to their culture, the ancestors lives in these trees, and they also call this tree "the king of the forest".Arno also combines this with Belgian Oak, that dried for more than 30 years, wood that was provided for the many furniture makers in Mechelen.
By treating these objects through the Yakusugi technique or another mentioned "Shou Sugi Ban" an ancient Japanese technique where the objects are burned to protect the wood from weathering and subsequently fixed to get a patina look as long as possible. This gives each object a unique texture that is loved by many.
