Material Relations
Mindy Solomon Gallery is pleased to present Material Relations, an exhibition bringing together the woven sculptures of Frances Trombly and the sculptural furniture of Hettler.Tüllmann, a Berlin- and Miami-based design studio. Through distinct approaches to material, structure, and form, both practices explore the relationships that shape how objects are made, experienced, and understood.
In her 1982 essay Material as Metaphor, artist and designer Anni Albers observed that “material, any material obeys laws of its own.” Albers understood making as a dialogue in which the artist engages with the possibilities and limitations of a chosen medium, following or challenging its inherent characteristics. This idea provides a point of departure for Material Relations, which considers how materials carry not only physical properties but also histories, conventions, and cultural associations.
For Frances Trombly, weaving becomes a way to examine the structures that underpin painting and the hierarchies that have historically separated fine art from textile practices. While painting has traditionally been privileged over weaving, the painted canvas itself depends upon textile as its foundational support. Trombly brings this often-overlooked relationship to the foreground, revealing the warp, tools, and labor that make a woven surface possible. Her sculptures expose threads that would ordinarily remain concealed, allowing them to extend, separate, and occupy space beyond the conventions of a finished canvas. Maple wood, the same material used in her loom, is reconfigured into forms that suggest deconstructed painting stretchers and frames. These wooden elements reference both the apparatus of weaving and the traditional supports of painting, bringing structures associated with making and presentation into the composition. Wooden shuttles remain embedded within the textile, parting threads and opening the woven structure from within. By bringing these elements into view, Trombly challenges distinctions between support and subject, process and finished object, and the historical values assigned to painting and textile.
Hettler.Tüllmann’s practice brings craftsmanship and sustainability into dialogue with contemporary design, organic processes, and the natural world. In the Ember Tide and Moss series, minimal tables feature chromatic surfaces developed in collaboration with Shell Homage, an award-winning specialist in organic surface materials. Composed of substances including quartz, lemon zest, eggshells, and nutshells, the surfaces reveal swirling passages of magenta, violet, and cream that evoke molten geological formations, while gradients of turquoise and cobalt suggest crystalline structures and aerial views of coastlines. Rich greens and delicate veining recall moss, mineral deposits, and reflective pools of water. These expressive surfaces pair with restrained structural forms, creating a dialogue between organic fluidity and deliberate construction. The tables retain their functional identity while inviting consideration as sculptural objects, reflecting a practice attentive to craftsmanship, material transformation, and environmental responsibility.
The exhibition’s title, Material Relations, extends beyond the physical relationships between materials to encompass the social and historical frameworks through which objects acquire meaning and value. Trombly’s work questions the distinctions between painting and textile, visible and invisible labor, and the supporting structures that have traditionally remained secondary to the image. Hettler.Tüllmann’s practice explores relationships between nature and design, organic substances and constructed form, and the expressive and functional possibilities of everyday objects.
Together, the works establish a dialogue between distinct artistic languages. The verticality and exposed structures of Trombly’s weavings encounter the horizontal planes and chromatic landscapes of Hettler.Tüllmann’s tables, creating connections between support, surface, and space. Through this encounter, Material Relations invites a reconsideration of the familiar distinctions between object and structure, function and expression, and the ways materials come to hold meaning.
About the Artists
Frances Trombly was born in Miami, Florida, where she lives and works. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1998. Her work considers the relationship between textiles and painting, exposing history and labor by deconstructing and liberating the canvas. Through this process, Trombly challenges the historical hierarchies between painting and textile practices, asserting fiber as both material and structure within contemporary art.
Trombly’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Selected exhibitions include What Holds, a solo exhibition at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles (2026), with additional exhibitions at the gallery (2021, 2016, 2011, 2010); To Weave the Sky at El Espacio 23 (2023); the Québec City Biennale (Manif d’art) (2022); #Fail at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (2022); and Sun Valley Museum of Art (2022). Additional solo and group exhibitions include presentations at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Contemporary Arts Program (2016); the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2015, 2007, 2005); Pérez Art Museum Miami (2013); Locust Projects (2013, 2006); The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2012); Kennesaw State University Art Museum, Kennesaw, GA (2012); The Bass Museum of Art (2011); Moore College of Art & Design, Goldie Paley Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2011); and Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY (2008).
She has received numerous grants, awards, and residencies. Residencies include TEXERE, Oaxaca, Mexico (2026); Artpace, San Antonio (2022); Hambidge Center (2019); Oolite Arts (2019); and Vermont Studio Center (2007). Awards and recognitions include The Ellies, Oolite Arts Awards (2024, 2019); Knight Arts Champion (2017); a nomination for a United States Artists Fellowship (2017); a Knight Arts Challenge Award in collaboration with Girls’ Club, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2010); and recipient of the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship (2009). Her work is held in public and private collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Pérez Art Museum Miami, NSU Art Museum, and the Jorge M. Pérez Collection.
Trombly’s work has been featured in numerous publications, including To Weave the Sky: Textile Abstractions from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection (El Espacio 23, 2023); Making Miami (Creative Accelerator, 2023), featuring a conversation between Frances Trombly and Bonnie Clearwater; Les illusions sont réelles, Illusions Are Real, Manif d’art 10—La biennale de Québec, edited by Steven Matijcio (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 2022); Change Agents: Six South Florida Artists Making Things Happen by Michelle Weinberg and Sarah Michelle Rupert (Girls’ Club, 2018); Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia from the Dennis and Debra Scholl Collection by Henry Skerritt (DelMonico Books / Prestel Publishing, 2016); Frances Trombly: Paintings, with essays by Bonnie Clearwater, Jenni Sorkin, Elaine Reichek, and Denise Delgado and a foreword by Michelle Weinberg (Girls’ Club, 2011); Younger Than Jesus: The Artist Directory by Massimiliano Gioni, Laura Hoptman, and Lauren Cornell (Phaidon Press, 2009); and Miami Contemporary Artists by Paul Clemence and Julie Davidow, with an introduction by Elisa Turner (Schiffer Publishing, 2007).
Trombly is the Co-Founding Director of Dimensions Variable (DV), a nonprofit contemporary art space in Miami she established with artist Leyden Rodríguez-Casanova in 2009. She continues to lead the organization, which supports underrecognized voices and experimental practices through exhibitions, studios, and public dialogue. Under her leadership, DV has supported over 200 artists and received major funding from the Knight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, and other cultural institutions.
hettler.tüllmann is the collaboration between designer Katja Hettler and architect Jula Tüllmann. After many years working abroad in Paris and New York they returned to Berlin and founded hettler.tüllmann, focusing on furniture design and interior architecture. In recent years Miami has become the second base.
Prior to hettler.tüllmann, both founders had separate careers. Katja Hettler worked with brands such as Louis Vuitton and with the designer Marc Newson, and Jula Tülllmann worked for Maya Lin and trained with Terence Riley at MoMA. They joined forces in Berlin and started their own furniture and interior design practice guided by a curiosity for sourcing innovative and sustainable materials. Throughout all of hettler.tüllmann’s collaborations the focus is not only on the form and function of the product, but also in the synthesis of entirely different cultures into a new context.
