The Unseen World of Truly Truly

Truly Truly is the creative child of Joel & Kate Booy, an Australian couple based in the Netherlands. Unexpected visual and material choices inspire their work which can be both whimsical and/or highly graphic in nature. The studio tackles all manner of creative challenges, ranging across objects, furniture, lighting, textiles and spaces. Their background in experimental graphic design is the source of their continued love for brave colour and pattern.

“If our work evokes a gut response in us, then that’s a good thing”. Truly Truly shares the visually experimental and vibrant universe of their work. It amplifies the out-of-sight elements of our world by giving them a high-energy visual presence. From the Frequency rug of vibrating lines and hairy orbs to the Particle Wallpaper of 5,000 flowing specks, they play with questions like…What does energy look like? What are the outer limits of interior space? How can furniture intrigue the viewer? These questions and more are on display as they present their dynamic interpretations of an unseen world.

(Particles Wallpaper)

What was the inspiration behind your new Particles Wallpaper design for NLXL LAB?

Originally we created this wallpaper as part of our first exhibition shown at Dutch Design Week 2014 titled ‘Particles & Frequencies’. For this, our themes were all based around the unseen forces and elements surrounding us. Energy, atoms, gravity etc. All the things you know are there but you cannot see. It is quite common in our work to deal with something that is on the fringe of reality, where we create our own vision of what that might be like. I realise that gravity and energy are in fact real but we found visualising them in our own way interesting.

(Frequencies Rug - Particles & Frequencies)

(Seismic Wall Sculpture & Particles Wallpaper - Particles & Frequencies)

(Seismic Table - Particles & Frequencies)

Can you see Truly Truly working on an entire collection of wallpaper designs?

For sure! We have already started work on some other designs that complement Particles. We appreciate wallpaper for it’s power to influence a space. Rick, Esther & Marjolein from NLXL have been really great to work with so we’re excited to continue our collaboration.

What projects are you currently working on?

We just finished a set of four lights for an exhibition curated by a fashion paper called Glamcult. It is being presented in an unused prison in Rotterdam. We have also been collaborating on some textiles and special living-room objects with Ikea. I can’t say much more about this but that it should be coming out in April 2016. Along with this, we are exploring a small collection of objects that will lie somewhere between sculpture and furniture.

(OTI LED - Dark Matter)