Inspired by the way rocks at a quarry fragment and break, Lex Pott designed his Fragments series to harmonize two extremes: rough, raw stone untouched by humans and perfectly smooth, processed stone achieved by industrial machination. Born and raised in the Netherlands as the child of artists, Pott began Fragments while enrolled at the Design Academy Eindhoven, as Ariela Gittlen wrote for Artsy, designing “a large marble table that combined machine cuts with natural breaks in the stone.” Pott’s professors reportedly thought this was perhaps too large of an undertaking, and tried to persuade him to make something smaller—but Pott continued, successfully enlisting a quarry and Dutch stone producer to collaborate.
Pott's first stone table became the basis of the Fragments series, commissioned for Design Miami/ in 2015. David Alhadeff of The Future Perfect noted of the collection, “I feel confidence in Lex’s ability to see the beauty in natural circumstance. Rocks broken and lying around become table bases. Rough boulders are contrasted by polished planes. The work is about showcasing the natural beauty of an object as much as it is about creating something new.”
