Thomas Roger
Thomas Roger is a French designer based in Mulhouse, where he founded his studio in 2022. Deeply rooted in rural and vernacular traditions, his practice draws from simple objects, improvised constructions and ways of making shaped by necessity. These references are never treated with nostalgia. In Thomas’ hands, they become the foundation for a highly contemporary language.
Working primarily with reclaimed wood sourced from local workshops and resource centres. Offcuts, discarded boards and different species of wood are carefully selected and brought into new constructions. Cutting, splitting, joining, binding form a vocabulary of simple gestures through which the material is transformed.
There is an extraordinary delicacy to Thomas’ work, even at its most raw and primitive. Nothing feels incidental. Thread is woven, cord carefully wrapped, pieces of wood selected and assembled one by one. His attention to detail is rigorous yet quiet, allowing precision to coexist with the immediacy of the gesture.
Doubt runs through Thomas’ practice. He questions the choices he makes, the forms he creates and the very reason for making an object. Rather than seeking to resolve these uncertainties, he keeps them present throughout the process. It is within this space, between intention and the unexpected, that an object can shift, becoming something he had not entirely anticipated. For him, doubt is not an obstacle to making, but part of what allows the work to evolve.
Moving between baskets, boxes, containers, furniture and sculptural forms, Thomas remains close to the language of everyday objects and to the gestures through which they are made. Function is present but never absolute: an object may hold, carry or contain, or simply occupy space. It is whthin this open territory, between use and presence, that much of the quiet force of his work resides.
For Puerta 43
The starting point was not a single collection, but a desire to compose a landscape from different moments in Thomas Roger practice. Baskets and boxes were selected across several bodies of work, each carrying its own history, yet chosen for the way it could enter into dialogue with the others. The curation is built through these encounters, through contrast, and shifts in scale, material and presence. Among them, works from Les Oiseaux carry a particularly personal history, rooted in Thomas’ memories of the baskets collected by his grandfather and kept in his family home.
basket
Basket 01
Basket 02
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The selection also brings together very different ways of working with wood. In one basket, wooden beads create an organic, almost textile-like structure; elsewhere, the boxes from Super Basique Collection approach the same material through an elementary architectural logic. Ceramic introduces a further shift in material, creating a break in the selection’s visual rhythm. Together, these works reveal different expressions of Thomas’ practice while creating a landscape of their own. Materials, techniques and individual histories remain distinct, brought into relation through Puerta’s curatorial eye.
A composition built through contrast and connection, offering a new reading of Thomas’ work while remaining unmistakably his own.