When American artist and designer Chris Wolston describes his latest exhibition, Profile in Ecstasy at Dallas Contemporary (on view until February 1, 2026), he smiles as if still surprised by the scale of it. “It’s the first museum show that I’ve done,” he says. “What excites me most is seeing the pieces together in a space where they can really be viewed holistically—outside a gallery or design fair.”

The exhibition, guest-curated by Glenn Adamson, unfolds like a surreal runway, four catwalks extending from a central podium. At its heart stands Grace, a cast-aluminium fountain inspired by Grace Jones’s iconic pose for Jean-Paul Goude’s Island Life cover. Water cascades over a body built from wax castings of jaduma leaves from Wolston’s garden in Medellín, Colombia, where much of his work is produced. The result is both devotional and playful: “It felt like this deity,” he says, “this icon of form and nature meeting.”

Silvestre Chair in terracotta and bronze and Blossom Lamp in bronze share, terracotta, and bronze adornments.

Anodized Cloud Floor Lamp in anodized sand casted aluminum, steel, lamping parts. Aprox L 25” x W 25” x H 67”

Wolston, who splits his time between New York and Medellín, is known for collapsing distinctions between furniture and sculpture, utility and expression. His practice ranges from wicker and terracotta to patinated bronze and anodised aluminium, often realised with Colombian artisans he’s collaborated with since his Fulbright grant in 2010. “When we weave wicker,” he explains, “it’s soaked in water until flexible. It’s like applying skin to a skeleton.” The analogy isn’t casual - his pieces often echo human anatomy. “The body has no right angles,” he laughs, “and neither does my work.”

The Dallas installation captures that sense of movement. The catwalks host new and familiar forms, like his animated Supermodel chairs, Terracotta Sunflower and Fresa seats, and the Yarumal Coffee Tables in rainbow patinated bronze. Nearby, the Palenquera Tables merge glazed stoneware with sand-cast aluminium; the Spiral Chandelier in Murano glass glints overhead. On the back wall hang two handwoven Cosmic Garden tapestries made with Beni rugs in Marrakech. “Those were like paintings for me,” Wolston says. “David and I started with photographs of calla lilies from our garden, digitally distorted them, then worked with the weavers to interpret them. It became a marriage of Moroccan textile and our own imagery.”

Grace in sand cast aluminium. L 71” x W 17” x H

That “David” is David Sierra, Wolston’s husband and creative partner, a fashion photographer and filmmaker whose work appears in the show for the first time. Curator Adamson describes Profile in Ecstasy as a study in “ecstatic potential,” where craft, sensuality, and material transformation collide. Sierra’s films bring that energy to life through three screens that pulse across the exhibition, looping between documentary and dreamscape.

“One is a documentary of Chris’s process over nine years, working in bronze, aluminium, wax,” Sierra says from Medellín. “Another is more of a performance film. I wanted to go inside Chris’s mind.” Models interact with his furniture; animated forms blur into living figures. “It’s like a dream where body and nature meet,” he adds. “His work has rhythm — the movement of wind through flowers. I wanted the videos to feel alive like that.”

Sandcast stools in sandcast aluminum and steel.

Colby Chair and Jiggly Chair in Columbian Mimbre (wicker) and Steel Frame.

If Sierra’s lens amplifies the body’s sensuality, Wolston’s craft grounds it. “I’ve always found humour and joy to be good ways of connecting with people,” he says. “Through furniture, you can enter that conversation easily… it’s intimate...” His wicker forms in particular, he notes, are both object and skin, sculpture and seat. Each piece sustains local craft economies while reimagining figural sculpture. “It’s about connection,” he says. “Taking something regional and sharing it beyond Medellín.”

That generosity extends to the surface. “With patinas,” Wolston says, “there’s an element of alchemy.” At the foundry, metal is torched and brushed with pigment and acid, the colour emerging through reaction. “It’s incredibly subjective. There’s this painterly moment where you just know: that section is done. Then you transition it into another colour, another energy.” The result is iridescent bronze credenzas, oxblood coffee tables that feel as alive as anything in motion on Sierra’s screens.

Both artist and filmmaker talk often of movement. Bodily, emotional, geographical. Wolston’s trajectory itself is global: from Rhode Island School of Design to Ghana’s Kokrobitey Institute, then to Colombia, where his Fulbright study of pre-Columbian ceramics rooted his practice in material and place. “People around the world see the same thing from different sides,” he reflects. “In Ghana I learned to look again. In Colombia, to collaborate. I think as artists, we have a responsibility to illuminate what’s not always recognised.”

Sombra Chandelier. L 36” x W 36” x H 57”

Living between two contexts, he adds, shapes how he thinks. “I work between two studios, two languages, two climates,” he says. “Each side influences the other.” Sierra agrees: “Nature and the body always have movement. In Chris’s work you find joy. Like poses that make you smile or laugh. That’s what I tried to bring into the films.”

It’s that blend of humour, beauty, and something defiantly excessive that gives Profile in Ecstasy its charge. Adamson’s curatorial lens draws on Art Nouveau, pre-Columbian symbolism, and architectural extravagance, framing Wolston as a designer of “rapture and reinvention.” The exhibition reads as both spectacle and inquiry: what happens when design leaves utility behind and enters a state of ecstasy?

For Wolston, the answer lies in transformation. “Furniture is democratic,” he says. “People live with it, touch it. It’s relatable. So if I can take these materials—bronze, wicker, terracotta—and make them feel alive, then maybe design can transcend itself.”

All Frills Chandelier in aluminium, wire, and glass. 40” x H 58.5”

The Dallas audience, he suspects, will respond to that immediacy. “There’s a growing art community here, people hungry for new explorations,” he says. “The work can be read as sculpture or furniture, but the films expand the universe. They show how design can move, quite literally.”

As the opening approached, Wolston sounded exhilarated and calm in equal measure. “It’s been such a joy building this with David,” he said. “Living together as creatives means our dinner-table conversations turn into ideas. Now they’re in a museum.”

Chris Wolston: Profile in Ecstasy runs from November 7, 2025, to February 1, 2026, at Dallas Contemporary.