Sabine Marcelis

Sabine Marcelis (born 1985) is a Dutch artist and designer. Typically focused on themes of transparency, reflection, opacity and translucency, often using pastel colours, minimalist shapes, smooth surfaces, and materials such as resin, glass, and stone, she has described her work as "an investigation of light, how it can create effects and atmospheres." She studied industrial design at Victoria University of Wellington before returning to Holland in her early twenties to study at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Before pursuing a career in design, Marcelis competed in semi-professional snowboarding.

Work and career

After graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2011, she founded Studio Sabine Marcelis in Rotterdam, where she lives and works. Her studio has worked with companies such as Apple, Audi, Bulgari, Cartier, Céline, Fendi, Isabel Marant,

Design Marcelis has designed furniture, lighting, packaging, and accessories for brands such as , Arco, , cc-tapis, Calico Wallpaper, Established & Sons, Mathmos, Natuzzi, and the Swedish furniture brand Hem.

In 2022 she designed a collection of lamps and homewares for Ikea which included "a vase, champagne coupes ... glasses, glass drink stirrers and carafes, donut-shaped glass bowls ... paper napkins and low pile rugs ... glass shelves and trays as well as coffee tables that mimic the designer's popular Candy Cubes." In 2026 she revisited the "now-iconic lamp" from the original Varmblixt collection, reimagining it as a high-tech, dimmable, variable colour smart version of the "cult" light (the original design was also reintroduced and will remain in the company's catalogue).

In 2024, the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam commissioned Marcelis to design a new piece. The result is an industrially manufactured brushed aluminium stacking chair called the Stedelijk Chair. A powder coated version of the piece in various colours was released in 2025.

Installations In 2019, Marcelis was invited by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation to participate in its Interventions programme, a series of temporary installations in the Barcelona Pavilion which has featured artists and architects such as Ai Weiwei, Enric MIralles, and Ryue Nishizawa.

She produced a temporary installation titled "Swivel" in St Giles Square in London for the 2022 London Design Festival.

In 2022, the Vitra Design Museum staged "Colour Rush! An Installation by Sabine Marcelis" in which she reorganised the approximately 400 pieces held in the exhibition warehouse collection by colour. Also in 2024, she designed Stacked, an abstract sculptural water fountain for Amsterdam's Vondelpark.

Her 2025 installation for Apple, which combines both an exhibition in the Apple Park Observatory galley that includes "prismatic polyester resin, frosted coloured glass, and clear acrylic" colour studies, as well as the addition of a mirrored obelisk like public sculpture in Apple Park, was called "Apple's most Instagrammable new launch" by Wallpaper* magazine.

In 2026 the Kunsthal Rotterdam added Marcelis's intervention to its Rem Koolhaas / OMA designed building, a work titled Continuum, which is part of the museum's Kunsthal Inside/Out programme. The initiative "invites designers to create a site-specific work that can be experienced both inside and outside of the building."

Exhibitions and collections alt=Sabine Marcelis (left) pictured with and the Milanese curator Maria Cristina Didero at a Milan Design Week reception in the palazzo Bagatti Valsecchi in 2023. Collections holding examples of Marcelis's work include the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam, Design Museum Gent, Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rabobank Kunstcollectie, and the at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam (in the Netherlands); in Brussels, the Vitra Design Museum in Germany; the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA); the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Her work has been exhibited at galleries such as Etage Projects in Copenhagen, Gallery Collectional in Dubai, Side Gallery in Barcelona, Carwan Gallery in Greece, Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert in Australia, and Design Miami.

Eight sculptures by Marcelis created for the 2023 Mille Miglia, for which she also designed the prize winners' trophies, were donated to the city of Brescia and exhibited the Cloister of the University of Brescia.

In 2024, her collaboration with traditional Japanese lacquerware artisans was included in a Tokyo exhibition at Kudan House called Craft x Tech Tohoku Project. The work, a series titled Yōkan, includes three pieces – two tables and a wall mounted abstract piece, all made using traditional Urushi lacquer on hand-crafted wood. Yōkan was subsequently exhibited at, Design Miami, the Victoria and Albert museum during the London Design Festival, and in the Netherlands Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka.

In 2025, the Museum of Modern Art added her to its collection and included the piece in Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, an exhibition featuring "widely recognized design icons [...] highlighting pivotal moments in design history."

She has frequently exhibited work at the Salone del Mobile since the start of her career, and in 2026 created a large kinetic piece titled Plume for the inaugural Salone Raritas, a new collectible design annex to the main fair. Speaking with la Repubblica at the time of the exhibition, she made a declaration of love to the city, and penned a "Love Letter to Milano".

Teaching She is a mentor for both the Women Bauhaus Collective and the Lexus Design Award, and also teaches at the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL).

Personal life Her partner is the architect . They have a son who was born during the Covid pandemic. Marcelis observed that her piece called "Boa", a torus shaped pouf, is "helping him learn how to walk. And it's also a perfect spot to safely place him if I have to quickly leave the room." They also have a daughter, who was born in 2024.

Inspiration At the age of 16, Marcelis was an avid snowboarder. In an interview with Surface magazine, she states that her use of snowboarding goggles made her realize the powerful effect colour has on one's environment. This helped her develop her work titled "Colour Rush" which was released in May 2022 at the Vitra Design Museum. 2019 Elle Deco International Design Award "Young Designer of the Year" 2020 Wallpaper* "Designer of the Year" 2022 Architectural Digest "AD100" 2023 Monocle Magazine "Designer of the year"

Publications