The ground-floor Sydney apartment of Alex Zabotto-Bentley (pictured at the kitchen table) of AZBcreative. Photo: Jennifer Soo
Clusters of objects, colour blocking and flower arrangements are what you get when visiting event designer Alex Zabotto-Bentley in his own space.
Alex Zabotto-Bentley's ground-floor Sydney apartment gives the impression he has spent a lifetime visually displaying his memories. It's hard to believe he's only been here for just three months. But while most of us fight clutter, he makes beautifully curated clusters of it.
"I love being surrounded by old treasures collected in my travels," says Zabotto-Bentley, the mastermind behind AZBcreative, which specialises in making visual experiences for corporate events. "I have a warehouse filled with furniture and objects from across the world."
His eclectic apartment is an extension of what he does best: creating a magical space brimming with books, artwork and objects that fire the imagination. "I'm like a magpie when I'm hunting and gathering. I have this knack of spotting the gem among the mass of trash and finding the perfect spot for it at home."
Zabotto-Bentley suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder as a boy, and today still colour co-ordinates his ceramics, figurines and books. "When I am setting up a vignette, I work with a rule of odd numbers. One nice object doesn't say anything about who I am, two is shrug-the-shoulder stuff, but a group is where the power is.
"Yes, I have a lot of stuff, but I like to say I have ordered clutter."
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