FEATURE
Deceres Studio
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Type
Interview
Contact
Deceres Studio represents one of our very favorites in contemporary design, creating profound furniture rooted in cultural duality and personal growth. Founded by Denise Martinez and Jorge Arturo Ibarra, this Los Angeles-based studio transforms the austere aesthetics of Catholic spaces and pre-Columbian architecture into contemporary objects that invite tranquility into our homes.
What sets Deceres apart is their deeply cerebral approach to design, emerging from conversations that explore cultural duality, personal growth, and the intersection of ancient and contemporary forms. They ask questions that honestly we’ve never had but maybe we needed to hear: What if Mayan and Aztec civilizations had progressed alongside Western religions? How can Donald Judd’s minimalism translate personal growth into sequential furniture forms? How do we transform homes into sacred spaces through everyday objects? Their collections like Ritus and Credo feature severe lines and narrow voids that reference both church furnishings and ancient ruins. The brilliant Juddas series merges Donald Judd’s minimalism with personal growth narratives, creating sequential pieces that build upon each other like chapters in a life story.
Jorge and Denise have managed to build a complete world both through their creations and through the highly curated network of projects and collaborators they’ve assembled. Working with family-run foundries and small studios in Mexico, they remain hands-on throughout the manufacturing process, developing textures and finishes that can take months to perfect. Their thoughtful partnerships with spaces like Studio Rö, The Future Perfect, and Eyn Vas reflect the same intentionality they bring to their material choices and craftsmanship.
What draws us personally to their work is how it captures two aesthetics we’re constantly pulled toward: the darker edges of fashion’s avant-garde alongside the familiar warmth that makes the design world so compelling. Every aspect feels immaculately considered, from material selection that references their childhood churches to the way each piece transforms homes into sacred spaces for daily rituals.
Despite their austere image with a focus on religion and the severe, Jorge and Denise create space for all of us through their genuine friendliness, thoughtfulness, and commitment to building community around shared questions and beautiful objects.
Can you share the story of how Deceres Studio came to be and how your individual journeys shaped the shared vision you’ve developed?
Deceres was conceived as a way for us to materialize our own introspections. Having both been raised in Mexican Catholic families on the Tijuana / San Diego border we were both exposed to many of the same cultural elements. There was a constant duality in our lives. Are we Mexican? Are we American? Are we catholic? Why and what are we? Deceres allows us to explore those questions and to create physical manifestations of these conversations.
Your work is defined by monolithic forms, severe lines, and narrow voids that create a distinct visual language. What drew you to this aesthetic that bridges brutalist architecture and sacred spaces?
The aesthetic is heavily derived from pre-columbian architecture. Encountering ruins in Mexico is always a profound experience for us. The scale, the architecture, it’s other-worldly.
However, Catholicism is very prominent in Mexican and Latin-American culture – the vast, ornate spaces, filled with austere furnishings were a constant in our upbringing. Yet, as we grew older we began to question their presence. “What if the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and their beliefs progressed alongside the Western civilizations and Abrahamic religions of today? What would the furnishings inside of contemporary pyramids be like? What decorative objects would be found in the hallowed halls?” We aim to answer these questions through our designs.
You’ve described the duality of living between worlds as central to your design philosophy. How has this shaped collections like Tempo, where you blend Mexican architectural references with contemporary forms?
Again, trying to answer the “What if?” question. We constantly feel split between two distinct cultures and find ourselves trying to bridge the gap between them. In Tempo however, the duality was temporal, we envisioned shapes that blurred the lines between the ancient and the contemporary, resulting in forms reminiscent of both pre-columbian ruins and brutalist architecture of the last century. We constantly look back in time for inspiration as we seek to create timeless pieces.
Collections like Ritus and Credo explore sacral and ceremonial themes through a reductionist lens. Could you tell us about these influences and how you translate them into contemporary pieces?
These themes come as a sort of rejection of certain customs and beliefs from our upbringings. We aren’t religious, for us what is sacred is our home, the moments we spend in them and who we share these spaces with. There are small ceremonies that happen throughout everyday and we aim to create for those moments. Our designs are intended to stand out but not compete with their environment – therefore we design by taking away elements, reducing forms down to the pure and functional.
Zooming out even further, your practice is founded on deeply introspective concepts – like time, permanence, and ritual. What does your creative process look like in transforming these abstract ideas into physical forms?
The process may vary from collection to collection but what is a constant is that everything starts with a conversation. These conversations eventually take us to an overall theme which we then work through by creating visual representations. Many times while discussing these ideas a design will emerge and we’ll sketch while we talk. Sometimes the designs are there from the start or a piece may be designed as an homage to something which then creates the overarching theme. Other times it’s the manufacturing process that dictates the end design.
When drawing from such personal and imaginative spaces, what stories or emotions do you hope your pieces evoke in those who experience them?
The reductionist approach stems from a desire to remove all distractions, to not oversaturate an environment. We hope that our works invite tranquility into spaces and the lives that inhabit them.
Both your material choices and finishing processes feel incredibly intentional – from the hand-textured aluminum of the Runa vessel to the wire-brushed oak of the Sakro chairs. How do you approach these elements to ensure they align with the stories you aim to tell?
The intent is to recontextualize elements found within sacred spaces. Much like in a church our furniture is mostly wooden and severe and the objects are in metals like bronze or aluminum. This again is part of the essential idea of transforming homes into sacred spaces. We are drawing parallels between those religious spaces, their furnishings and ornaments and what we are filling our home with.
You often reference ‘daily rituals’ in describing your work. How do you see your pieces participating in or shaping these intimate moments of everyday life?
Despite the stories and intentions behind all our designs they are after all functional pieces of furniture. They may appear sculptural but are indeed meant to be used and lived with. The Sakro chair is a chair you can actually sit in, the Olter dining tables are created to be objects of communion, where conversations can be had and bread can be broken. The pieces are designed to be incorporated seamlessly into everyday life.
Collaboration is integral to Deceres, particularly your partnerships with artisans in Mexico and California. How do these relationships influence your designs, and what role do they play in bringing your ideas to life?
Without our partnerships we would be missing generations of knowledge and experience that are key to crafting our pieces. We may have ideas and references but our partners often propose techniques and unique perspectives that add depth both technically and visually.
Your studio emerged from years of conversations about design, heritage, and meaning. How have those initial dialogues evolved since founding Deceres? What new questions or territories are you excited to explore in the coming years?
It’s not so much that our dialogues have changed, rather we have expanded the variety of ways we can express our concepts in physical representations. Whereas four years ago we could only fathom developing one piece or small object at a time, we are now thinking in terms of whole furniture collections, accessories, and even architecture. We are currently working on the first iteration of Casa Deceres, which we have imagined for years; our largest work to date which will house many pieces from our collections.
