In Evanston apartment, art and accessories get the spotlight — furniture takes the back seat Posted on November 16th
When Reena Amin moved to Evanston from Manhattan five years ago, she brought with her two suitcases of clothes and 30 boxes of belongings. About 20 of the boxes contained books. The remaining 10 held art and other miscellaneous doodads. Not included in the cargo was furniture.
“Furniture is something you need, but art has real stories to it. Art is what I want to be the focus,” says the 32-year-old assistant-textiles buyer for Crate and Barrel. That philosophy happens to work well in her cozy, 720-square-foot apartment, but it’s a preference Amin would have regardless of her home’s size. Amin’s one-bedroom has all the furniture she needs, though no more than that.
The furniture she does own takes a back seat to her art and accessories. On her living room wall is a trio of artwork: a blue and black Paul Klee print, a blue and green original Robert Motherwell screen print, and Amin’s favorite, an original screen print of the Chicago Brown Line stop by local artist Hiroshi Ariyama. On the dining room wall is a large white canvas with a drip of black paint across it. The artist responsible for this one? Amin herself. She copied it from a piece featured in the movie “Down with Love.”
“It was Ewan McGregor’s apartment,” Amin says. “At first, I searched online to see if I could find the exact piece, but I couldn’t. So I ended up freeze-framing the scene on my computer, printing it out, enlarging it, and copying it onto my canvas.”
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