Attitudes to animal welfare inspire product and graphic designer Lohmann's furniture and lighting, a concern that started with her childhood ambition to be a vet: 'I'd befriend dogs and goats. I didn't understand then - or now - why we don't see ourselves as animals.'
The German-born, London-based designer's furniture, co-created by Gero Grundmann, explores our relationship with animals - such as her Cow Bench, a bovine torso shape draped in real cowhide (pictured above). 'I want to reconnect objects made of animal materials with their own origins.'
She feels it's important to use animal materials in her designs: 'They're always byproducts of the meat industry. I like to find new uses for animal materials deemed worthless.' A fine example is her prettily lace-patterned Ruminant Bloom light, made from an illuminated cow's stomach.
Mercifully, she's sanguine about the limited market for her designs: 'I made some porcelain mice modelled on frozen mice sold as snake food - a bridge between a Disney idea of mice and mice as vermin. People say they look cute, but won't buy them when they hear the story behind them. At the moment, it's mainly collectors who buy my work.'
· Lohmann's designs are at Gallery Libby Sellers, London SW7, 19 September to 14 October (www.libbysellers.com)
