Nina Levett designs patterns for textiles, wallpapers and tableware. The work process starts with china ink drawing on transparent paper.
The Austrian designer uses the idea of the Wiener Werkstaette designs which were made in Vienna about 100 years ago. She develops stories about all sorts of people. Some of the stories are about failure, love, sadness, greed, anger, suicide, drugs and searching for a god or forgiveness.
Her style is distinctive. She is well known for handprinted and embossed leather upholstery for her famous Sperm Sofa, and has had success with her porcelain collection. Her tableware collection for 6 is in the permanent collection of the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts.
Her inspirations come from films like “” directed by Jonas Ackerlund about Madonna’s 2004 concert tour called Re-Invention, or the film Bad Lieutenant by Abel Ferrara. Another one of the themes in Nina Levett’s work is the “woman as an object”. Often the designs depicts women without face, to say that everything is about a standarized concept of beauty, thinness, agony and deprivation.