Designer Uses Mesmerizing Water Technique to Create Marbled Multicolor Floors

Textile designer Penille Snedker Hansen of Snedker Studio turns wood floors into technicolor tiles using a newly imagined combination of classic techniques. The process for her Marbelous Wood series draws from a Japanese practice called suminagashi, as well as a Western marbling method, with a bit of added experimentation and vibrant creativity.

She first adds colored paint to a water basin in individual drops, allowing the liquid to spread in ripples of multi-hued gradations. Then, when an interesting pattern emerges, she carefully lays a wood panel across the fluid surface to capture the marbled imprint. Each resulting design interacts in a graphic synthesis with the natural grain of the timber, mimicking its organic texture while drawing attention to its unique structural intricacies.

In Refraction, a subset of the overall Marbelous Wood project, Snedker Hansen finds inspiration in the spectrums that result from refracting light through a prism. She also cites the influence of time: each wood panel represents a unique moment, paused in the middle of a process she can’t entirely control. As she compiles the panels together to construct the full flooring, she aims to amplify the viewer’s recognition of all architectural surfaces, encouraging an examination of the materials that surround us in our constructed spaces. It would be difficult indeed to resist a closer look while walking across such psychedelic ground.