N
ew York-based artist Doug Meyer doesn’t consider himself
to be a decorator. “For me, my interiors are more conceptual,
more like a piece of art,” he asserts. They are certainly
high-voltage, highly original and exquisitely bespoke. He
hates repeating himself, avows a love of “things that are
odd”, and couldn’t imagine a world without bright hues. “Colour is never
shocking for me. I always find it so amazing.”
Many of his projects to date have been equally amazing. Several years
ago, he worked on a Manhattan apartment for fashion designer Sylvia
Heisel, where he covered the walls of her kitchen-cum-living room with
a crisscross pattern of black tape — there were nearly 2.2 kilometres
of it in total. He also clad his own former flat with almost 3000 sheets
of multicoloured paper. His seemingly boundless creative imagination is
not limited to dreaming up eccentric interiors either. He also has his own
homewares and accessories line, developed in tandem with his brother,
Gene; has produced a book called Heroes: A Tribute, which pays homage
to 50 figures in the arts who have died from AIDS;
and is constantly busy making brightly toned
cameos for the likes of New York socialite Amy Fine
Collins and actress Mindy Kaling of The Office fame.
Meyer was born in Louisville, Kentucky,
to parents who were high on colour. He claims
his mother was a Candice Bergen lookalike and
recalls his father going off to play golf dressed in
a fuchsia sweater and lime-green corduroy trousers.
He moved to New York at the age of 15, studied
Fine Art at Parsons School of Design, and spent an
inordinate amount of time hanging out at Studio 54.
After graduation, he worked for art dealer Holly
Solomon and then decamped to Miami in the early
’90s, where he opened a glamorous newsstand on
Washington Avenue called Beach News. His regular
clients included Gianni Versace and Madonna.
Meyer moved back to New York a decade ago and
now shares an 80-square-metre apartment with his
husband, lawyer Meade Ali. It is located in what
could only be described as a nondescript brick
high-rise in Chelsea. In true Meyer fashion, the flat itself
is both wonderful and wacky. It features a pink wall partition
christened Deep Space, whose inspirations include sci-fi
films and topographical maps. There is also a blue library
he compares to a fish tank, wall panels made from
back-painted glass with microorganism-like motifs and a
jewel-like console with multiple protrusions. There are quieter
moments, too. The red oak veneer walls in part of the living
space are a flashback to an Angelo Donghia-decorated flat at
the United Nations Plaza, which he visited in the mid-1970s.
Ali, meanwhile, insisted that the predominant tone in the
bedroom was grey. “I call it ‘The Prison’,” quips Meyer.
While almost everything in the f lat is custom, he also
wanted it to be free and easy. He specifically chose the Warren
McArthur chairs in the sitting room because they fold up.
“I love that things are movable,” he states. “That way, it’s not
that precious or permanent.” And he’s constantly bemused
by reactions to his environment. “A lot of people say, ‘How
do you live like this?’” he sighs. “But, for me, this is totally
normal. It’s just how I think.” VL
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