Frank Traynor is a Los Angeles–based artist and designer whose practice focuses on reframing ordinary materials with wit and material intelligence. Dog bowls, candlesticks, kitchen utensils, padlocks, and other utilitarian items are transformed with stone, shell, and tin – materials gathered intuitively from Big Sur cliffs to a gravel driveway in Chapel Hill.

He first developed The Perfect Nothing Catalog in 2012, beginning with a salvaged shack he found in upstate New York and transported to Brooklyn. Operating between commercial and conceptual definitions, the project explored the shifting function of public objects and brought a light-hearted approach to exhibition-making, shaped by Traynor’s eclectic early jobs as a Christmas tree salesman, pumpkin carver, New York Harbor sailor, and costume fabricator for the Rockettes. His current body of work extends this same spirit of resourcefulness and experimentation.