Dezeen Magazine

Color Reform Spectrum Edition by ABC Carpet & Home

The peeling, brightly painted walls of an abandoned house provide a striking backdrop to this collection of over-dyed handmade rugs by American designer homeware brand ABC Carpet & Home.

Color Reform Spectrum collection by ABC Carpet & Home

San Francisco photographer Jason Madara shot the rugs for ABC Carpet & Home in a derelict house in upstate New York, where the peeling paintwork complemented the rich colours and faded patterns of the rugs.

Color Reform Spectrum collection by ABC Carpet & Home

While the original Color Reform collection took vintage rugs and over-dyed them, the Spectrum collection uses new rugs, handmade individually in Pakistan.

Color Reform Spectrum collection by ABC Carpet & Home

The over-dyeing process involves neutralising the rug's original colours before dyeing it with one rich colour, leaving the original patterns faintly visible in the weave.

Color Reform Spectrum collection by ABC Carpet & Home

Photographs are by Jason Madara.

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ABC Carpet & Home has launched its latest rug collection, Color Reform Spectrum Edition, with a dynamic advertising campaign captured by the internationally renowned interior and lifestyle photographer Jason Madara.

The campaign was envisioned and directed by Angela Gruszka, ABC Carpet & Home's director of marketing, and shot in upstate New York in an abandoned early 20th century house with eclectic brightly painted interior. Uninhabited for over 20 years, its weathered state presented noticeable imperfections, from chipped paint to extensive surface fractures that were captured by Madara’s exquisite sense of detail to give the photographs texture and life.

The rugs were shot through a series of doors to produce mesmerising painterly-like compositions with contrasting yet harmonious continuums of rich, beautiful colour. Madera with his exceptional sense of light and shadow transformed the space into a surreal environment, achieving the perfect balance of intensity between rugs and the walls.

The collection is the latest manifestation of the iconic series of artistic over-dyed rugs from ABC. Staying true to the philosophy of utilising the power of colour to reinvent and recreate, Color Reform Spectrum continues to embrace the transformational strength of colour by applying the Color Reform concept to new rugs created with the intention of being over-dyed. Each one-of-a-kind rug was individually and intricately handmade and over-dyed by Pakistani artisans to create the remarkable chromatic compositions in a seemingly endless exotic palette.

Madara, an internationally renowned photographer based in San Francisco, captures moments as performances – alive and visceral in their stillness. Formally trained at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, he has practiced professionally across the globe. Madara’s deft balance of lightness and darkness brings beauty and tension to glimpses both ordinary and extraordinary. His depth of emotion unveils the complex sweetness, fragility, and power of the human state and natural environment.