PROFILES

Erica Sellers is a New York based designer and artist whose work merges historical and futuristic aesthetics with a distinctly subversive sensibility, spanning objects, interiors, and furniture. In 2020, she co-founded Studio S II, transforming her Ridgewood townhouse into the House of S II: a living archive, exhibition space, and cinematic showroom where collectible design intersects with art, performance, and community.

Sellers designed major international exhibitions for a number of contemporary artists, including two editions of the Venice Biennale (55th and 57th), Prospect.3 in New Orleans (2013), the Carnegie International (2017), and SFMOMA (2018), and appeared as a competitor on Ellen's Next Great Designer (HBO Max, 2021). As Head of Art Production & Outdoor Sculpture for artist Tavares Strachan, she led the fabrication of large-scale permanent works.

A born-and-bred New Yorker raised by two immigrant parents, Erica brings that same restless, subversive energy from the studio into everything else she touches. She's an avid motorcyclist who treats the city streets like her own design problem, and a snowboarder chasing the same adrenaline off the mountain that she chases in the studio. She reads deeply in science fiction, where speculative worlds and imagined materials feed back into her constant experimentation with new mediums in the shop. Erica is also embedded in New York's underground rave scene, where she sits on the Design Board of the Queer Nightlife Community Center – not just showing up to the party, but helping build the room it happens in.

Hanna Propst leads the architectural and interior design division at Studio S II, where they shape the studio's provocative, cinematic point of view into high-end residential work. Their interiors move with a director's instinct for mood and drama, pairing bold, contemporary gestures with an exacting command of proportion and craft, spaces built to feel as striking in a photograph as they do to live in.

Hanna sharpened their technical eye at two of New York's most respected design firms, McAlpine and Carrier & Company, where they mastered the discipline and proportion that classic residential work demands, a foundation they now bend toward something more contemporary and unexpected. They hold an MFA in Interior Design with a concentration in Historic Preservation from the New York School of Interior Design; studied Organizational Behavior at Harvard; and hold a Certificate in Classical Architecture from the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art – an unconventional combination that shapes how they lead teams and manage the complexity of large-scale design projects.

Originally from Boone, North Carolina, Hanna brings the same discipline and physicality from their design work into their life outside the studio. They compete in eventing on their horse, Romeo, trains in boxing, and recently earned their motorcycle license. They sketch in-situ whenever they can carve out the time, and are active in New York's underground rave scene, where they serve on the Design Board of the Queer Nightlife Community Center. Hanna is also a member of the Avant-Garde at the Park Avenue Armory and a member of the Design Leadership Network.