Tile Dust

‘Tile Dust’ is a collection of screen-printed geometric wooden shapes that sit in a base of bio resin, which all got their colour using ground recycled roof tiles.

Continuously fascinated by windmills, Studio Merel Karhof made a new design using this time the harvest of historic colour mill ‘De Kat’ in the Netherlands.This windmill has been fitted out to grind materials into dust. One of the Windmill specialties is recycling discarded Dutch roof tiles into powder, which then can be used as pigment.

In ‘Tile Dust’ Merel made water based paint from the ground roof tiles, which she screen-printed onto plywood. For the pattern she took inspiration from her two-month residency in China, she got fascinated by the daily view from her 8 floor high apartment. Every morning she made a picture of the sky and noticed that there is almost never a clear sky in Nanjing. This is because particulate matter, better known as dust, was blocking the view. On regular walks trough the city she noticed dust patterns being formed by the particles swirling back to the earth.

‘Tile Dust’ consists of 3 objects a mirror, a fruit bowl and a magazine rack. The dust pattern is printed on plywood using the recycled roof tile paint. Each object has a base made of terracotta powder mixed with bio resin, which perfectly fit into each other.