Emma Scully Gallery Presents SVILA: An Exhibition of Works by Artist-Designer Ana Kraš.
Opening May 7th, the solo show coincides with the series of art and design fairs throughout the month.
New York, New York – Emma Scully Gallery is proud to announce SVILA, a solo exhibition by Ana Kraš. The show will open on May 7, 2026 and remain on view through June 13, 2026.
Centered around silk – svila in Kraš’s native Serbian – it showcases a new body of work that explores the material across a range of functional and sculptural objects. Known for her intuitive and tactile approach to design, Kraš examines how silk behaves in different contexts, emphasizing its translucency, texture, and responsiveness to light.
The presentation includes Svila Side Tables, Glass Coffee Tables, and Panel Lamps – all of which are in two color variants. The works juxtapose silk with materials such as wood, glass, and metal, creating distinct visual and physical relationships. In the lamps, woven silk diffuses light, revealing its irregular structure and delicate luminosity. The glass coffee tables frame the material beneath reflective surfaces, where light introduces depth and gloss. The side tables present silk more directly, highlighting its raw and tactile qualities.
A central focus of the exhibition is the way silk interacts with light over time. Rather than remaining fixed, the material shifts depending on the time of day and the viewer’s perspective. These subtle transformations are integral to the experience of the work, positioning light as an active and variable component across the collection.
Kraš began developing Svila in the weeks following the birth of her child. “In those early days, I felt suspended in a quiet, protective space – very much like being inside a cocoon – and I wanted to work from that feeling of softness, closeness, and transformation,” she says. This experience led her to reflect on the origin of silk itself (the cocoon) as a structure of fragility, protection, and transformation. These themes resonate throughout the show, which considers processes of growth, care, and emergence.
At the same time, Kraš reconnected with her cultural roots. Speaking exclusively in Serbian to her newborn, she was drawn to incorporate elements of her heritage into the work. This is reflected in the introduction of hand-carved wood components, produced using a traditional technique from the Balkans. Kraš collaborated with artisans in Bosnia who continue to practice this UNESCO-protected method, embedding a shared cultural language and history into the collection.
Following the opening, the gallery will be open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays from May 8 through June 13, with additional viewings available by appointment.
About Ana Kraš
Ana Kraš is a Serbian designer, photographer, creative director, and fine artist. Born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia, Kraš began her career as a student of interior architecture and furniture design at the University of Applied Arts in Belgrade. In 2008, Kraš showcased her student projects, notably a yarn-woven lamp named Bonbon, at the Salone Del Mobile in Milan. The extraordinary attention it received, from both the press and the design community, marked the start of her international career in furniture design. In 2010, Kraš relocated to Los Angeles, and by 2012, she had moved to NYC, establishing her studio in Manhattan. Over a decade, she worked on diverse projects spanning furniture and interior design, fine arts, set design, photography, and fashion. In 2021, Kraš made a transition to Paris, where her studio is currently located.
Kraš’s work is characterized by a spontaneous feeling, simple form, and an unexpected, unique color palette. A common thread running through her diverse body of work is a ‘line.’ This ‘line’ manifests in various forms, such as the repeated threads becoming a Bonbon lamp; color-changing lines in her delicate linear drawings; expressive lines in her large-scale oil stick works; and extruded lines found in her Mara furniture pieces. Her extensive range of designed products includes chairs, benches, tables, lamps, wallpapers, interiors, ceramics, textile patterns, swimwear, shoes, clothes, and set designs.
In 2024, alongside her partner Ruben Moreira, Kraš founded ‘Teget,’ her lifestyle brand, where she integrates all her skills to create a universe of homeware and fashion products.
About Emma Scully Gallery
Located in a 19th Century townhouse on the Upper East Side, Emma Scully Gallery presents thought-provoking, contemporary works that aim to answer the question of how design can gracefully move forward in today’s material society facing super abundance, the ecological cost of overproduction and the shift from the physical to the digital world. A balance of established greats, undiscovered talents, and collaborative commissions, the gallery’s conceptual programming is academically curated by EmmaScully, a creative professional well-versed in art history, design, and decorative art.
