Richard Clarkson

Richard Clarkson founded his eponymous studio in 2013 after earning an MFA from the School of Visual Arts' Products of Design program and a Bachelor of Design Innovation from Victoria University of Wellington. The art-and-design lab makes celestial-inspired lighting and objects, including the Cloud sound-and-light piece, and maintains a New York office alongside its primary studio in New Zealand. The Cloud, built on the Arduino platform, uses motion sensors to trigger lightning and thunder effects that mimic a storm cloud, and the studio has produced related pieces including the Gravity Well chandelier and its Constellation and Aurora collections. Clarkson's client list has included Google, IBM, Coca-Cola, and Miley Cyrus.