Interiors: The Redic Experience

Our regular Interiors features take a look through the keyhole into the homes of some of Shanghai's well known faces. 

David Redic is a poet. He’s also a painter, a sculptor, a singer and a playwright. Oh, and did we mention he designs his own clothes? The creative Chicagoan arrived in Shanghai five years ago, on an artistic journey that led him to fall in love with the city and make it the center of his work - a striking ensemble of two-dimensional mixed-media assemblage and visual installations. 

To get to his house, an open studio-cum-exhibition space where he hosts anything from wine tastings to poetry readings, plays and intellectual gatherings, one walks down an old lane, past elderly Chinese ladies frying vegetables in a communal kitchen and up a rickety staircase painted in bold colors and dotted with sculptural wall pieces incorporating bamboo, glass, found objects and primary hues. And that’s just a first glimpse of the artist’s visionary world…

A view of the stairs leading up to Redic’s studio. Although shared with the house’s other tenants, artworks adorn most walls in the hallway. “I have this philosophy of ‘starting with what you have,’” he explains. “So that’s what I did. I started from here.” A sense of endearing creativity pervades the entire space. 

Joyful, daring, all-encompassing color is pivotal to Redic’s work. Alongside the physical pieces on display are augmented prints of some of his original works from his time as an artist in LA. 

[4] Glass and pieces of broken mirrors are recurrent elements of ‘Blue Canvas,’ one of the artist’s series. “The human spirit is beautiful,” he says, “so I want the observer to catch a glimpse of himself here and now,” he explains. 

A piece Redic designed himself for a performance. The artist used feathers to create a dream catcher effect – another core inspiration for his work.

Raw, powerful creativity shines through every single bit of this living workspace. Redic loves to work with discarded objects and give them a new artistic life. 

Entering the studio, a series of striking ‘thrones’ take up most of the floor surface. “I create them with reclaimed materials,” he says. “As I see potential in waste. The thrones are seats of personal power, but also places to simply sit and dream.”

This throne, created from of a 1940s-era chair, is a tribute to the late Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, one of Martin Luther King’s mentors and President of Morehouse College in Atlanta, which Redic attended. “I wanted to honor his teachings but also the man himself,” he explains. The artwork mixes the school colors, jazz shoes and excerpts from May’s body of works.

> Photos by Nicky Almasy, To see other interiors features, click here.