Photos By Gail

I first encountered John Procario’s Sculpted Chaise last fall at Salon Art + Design, tucked into the Todd Merrill Studio booth, where it immediately stood apart — not by volume or flash, but by the quiet authority of its line. Seen in person, the piece read less like a sofa and more like a drawing pulled into three dimensions, its elongated curve unfolding slowly across the floor.

The Sculpted Chaise marks a significant evolution in Procario’s practice. Long admired for his hand-bent Freeform Series lighting, Procario began exploring furniture design in 2019, and this work feels like a culmination of that trajectory. The chaise brings together the lyrical linearity of his Freeform lights, the sense of mass and scale explored in the Basin and Crevasse series, and the distinctly bodily awareness present in his Posterior lounge chairs and benches. Each prior body of work seems to resolve here, refined into a single, fluid gesture.

Installation View in the Todd Merrill Studio Booth

Shaped in a gentle C-curve, the thirteen-foot chaise subtly undulates, its low arched back echoing both the contours of the human form and the rolling landscape of the Hudson Valley, where Procario is based. The piece appears to hover — its central span lifting lightly from the ground before touching down again at softly rounded corners — creating the illusion of motion, a hallmark of Procario’s work.

Procario has spoken about the sofa as an opportunity for increased sculptural freedom, a form that allows him to shape not just space, but experience. Each chaise begins as a linear, three-dimensional sculpture, built intuitively through a slow process of layering, carving, and refinement. There is no predetermined final design; instead, the form emerges organically, guided by the natural curves of the laminated wood. Only after the internal armature is complete does the piece begin to take on its functional identity, resulting in a work that feels at once deliberate and alive.

Finished in crisp ash wood and upholstered in a soft cream alpaca and wool blend, the Sculpted Chaise balances visual weight with an unexpected sense of levity. Like much of Procario’s work, it rewards close looking — and, inevitably, the impulse to sit.

Produced on a commission basis, each chaise is a singular work, shaped by process, material, and the artist’s steadily honed sense of line.