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Miriam — a new design and interiors brand based on artistic tradition
Miriam is a design and interiors brand founded by Swedish artist Miriam Aschan in Stockholm in 2018.
“I created my brand as I feel confident in my role as an artist and want to focus on communicating my visual expression through products,” Miriam says. “I’m fascinated by Josef Frank who created patterns with eternal life. My dream is to achieve something similar. As an artist, I have the knowledge of my hand — and my fantasy and my visual world. With my patterns and motifs I want to contribute harmony and balance but also an element of mystery — something that challenges the eye and the fantasy.”
Miriam Aschan was raised in an artistic home, with a father, Ulf, who is an artist and lives for art. He brought Miriam to The Louvre and other Paris museums starting when she was a small child. The great modern master painters became her teachers.
Through the years, Miriam Aschan has exhibited her art mainly in Stockholm and in the Småland region. Her graphic works has been represented by Galleri Andersson Sandström in Stockholm and Umeå.
After her exam project Talking to Frank at Konstfack College of Art in Stockholm, in which Miriam studied the pattern designs of Josef Frank, Miriam formed a collaboration with renowned Frank experts Kristina Wängberg-Eriksson and her husband Jan, authors of the books Peppis flora (English title Josef Frank) and Josef Frank livsträd i krigets skugga. The creative exchange with the Wängberg-Eriksson pair set the Miriam brand in motion.
Together with the couple, Miriam created the pattern Då livet sjunger (When Life Sings) — a free interpretation of a small Japanese woodcut hanging on the wall in the Wängberg-Erikssons’ home. For inspiration, Miriam turned to Josef Frank but also to Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, two of those modernistic pioneers with whom she grew up.
“The pattern is a celebration of life,” says Miriam.
Den blomstertid nu kommer (Time of blossom has arrived) is a variation on the same theme — a visual hymn to Swedish nature. The other main pattern in the premiere collection from Miriam is Urstark (A strength from deep within), a papercut collage inspired by Kai Nielsen’s sculpture Vandmoderen (The Water Mother) at the Glyptoteket Art Museum in Copenhagen.
“Urstark is about standing up for your ideals and knowing your powerful inner self,” Miriam says. “I believe that we are all born with a primal strength and an inner compass deep inside us. The art of life is following that inner course”.
Miriam Aschan’s visual landscapes are characterized by both dreamy and powerful qualities and a color palette of strong contrasts. All products in her collection, from the serving trays to the cutting boards and coasters, are crafted in superior quality in Sweden from sustainable FSC-labeled Nordic wood.
*Kristina Wängberg-Eriksson, PhD, has been associated with Svenskt Tenn since 1985 for research on Josef Frank and his collaboration with Estrid Ericson. Together with her husband Jan she is the author of the books Peppis flora (Josef Frank, 1994), Josef Frank livsträd i krigets skugga(1998) and Josef Frank möbelformgivare(2014).