Draga & Aurel

Founded in Como in 2007 by Draga Obradovic and Aurel K. Basedow, Draga & Aurel is an acclaimed multidisciplinary studio working at the intersection of art, design, and craftsmanship. Its experimental approach combines original processes with a painterly treatment of material and composition. Drawing on radical Italian postmodernism and neo-futurism, the duo has developed a distinctive, immediately recognizable formal language. From the reactivation of historic forms to explorations of transparency, Draga and Aurel place transformation at the heart of their work, which unfolds between furniture and painting, material and light.

Originally from Serbia, Draga Obradovic trained at the Belgrade Painting Academy and the Florence Academy of Fine Arts before working in fashion and textile design. Born in Germany, Aurel K. Basedow studied at the Milan Academy of Fine Arts and went on to develop a body of work as a painter and visual artist. Their sensibilities converge in a practice where material and the freedom of the painterly gesture inform the structural precision of design.

A pioneer of upcycling, the duo first gained recognition for their transformative approach to vintage furniture. Launched in 2009, the Heritage collection is created from existing pieces of twentieth-century furniture. Cabinets, wardrobes, and sideboards are meticulously restored, reconfigured, and reimagined through the application of hand-poured polychrome resin to their fronts—a signature medium of the studio. These abstract painterly compositions envelop the original structures in a play of revelation and concealment. Traces of the past surface in a new narrative in which memory and invention, materiality and time, echo one another.

Since 2009, their career has been marked by collaborations with leading Italian design houses, including Baxter, Wall&decò, Visionnaire, Gallotti&Radice, Poltrona Frau, and Giorgetti. Their creations have received several international distinctions, including the Wallpaper* Design Award, the German Design Award, and the Archiproducts Design Awards.

Launched in 2019, the Transparency Matters collection affirmed their mastery of resin and elevated transparency to an aesthetic principle—both a philosophy and a process through which form takes shape. Drawing on the essential volumes of Minimalism, the retro-futuristic impulse of Space Age design, and the perceptual play of Op Art, Draga Obradovic and Aurel K. Basedow synthesize these influences into a coherent yet evolving formal language. Resin, acrylic, glass, bronze, brass, and concrete are treated as active media. Rather than imposing a predetermined form, the duo makes room for the unexpected. Each object thus becomes a record of exploration. Light acts as a material in its own right: it reveals the depths of matter and subtle chromatic transitions, while color no longer sits on the surface but seems to emerge from within the form itself.

In 2026, their collaboration with Venetian glassmaker Salviati extends this exploration of transparency to Murano glass. The Crisalide lighting pieces and tables layer sheets of colored glass whose overlaps act as optical filters, generating hues that shift with the viewing angle and the light.