Many people have asked about the large wall mural in our showroom at the April High Point Market depicting an image of a couple dancing.

As you may know, the beautiful furniture collection at Nathan Anthony Furniture is a result of a collaboration between a husband and wife design team – Khai Mai and Tina Nicole. So what could be more fitting than a wall mural created from five photos of a choreographed tango Khai and Tina performed for their wedding guests.

This was their “first dance as husband and wife” at their wedding reception which took place at the historic Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

 

When it came time to design the showroom at High Point Market, Tina wanted something more than paint on the walls.  She wanted to juxtapose their furniture with grand scale art; A backdrop depicting the human body in motion that is both poetic and sensual with movement and flow. She remembered the tango from their wedding and the sequence she loved most from the dance was when Khai spun Tina around (without tripping!). The original photos can be seen below…

 

 

Looking at the photos, you see not only a dance, but artistic elements of the human form, shape, movement and fluidity. Tina, working in collaboration with Sally Coates, removed the identifying parts of the faces and fused the images of the dance together to recreate the dance sequence. The next step was to pan in on the elements of the torsos – the arms, neck, back and hands. With the images slightly out of focus, you’d create the feeling of being in the room where people are dancing; the dance ending in a loving embrace. Sepia in tone and at a very large scale, the mural created a feeling of wonder, celebration and emotion. There were certainly many smiles around the showroom.

 

The mural represents what has become a harmonious dance of Khai and Tina’s life together as best friends, as husband and wife, as parents of twelve-year-old Nathan Anthony, as entrepreneurs and as designers of the beautiful furniture they create together.

Take a tour of the showroom to see how the mural worked with the furniture. Click on the video above and experience the tango of design yourself!