Linking the traditional with the modern in wood.
I am a woodworker and visual artist, creating unique, one of a kind, hand-built wood artefacts. My work is very connected to the subjective, intuitive qualities with a strong flavour of balance and sophistication. I feel the approach to this is through a minimalistic path, where less is indeed more.
I value a process that has an ongoing responsiveness of the design to the materials at hand.
This is a sketch that I made for a customer to propose various options for drawers for a custom worktable. The worktable was custom designed to help the child have a proper workspace that would help the child develop an early sense of organisation as well as independence in learning to be productive, as well as have their own space. I considered keys on the locks of the drawers, for example, to help in that productivity.
I enjoy meticulous attention to detail by hand crafting all the individual pieces.
Sometimes I find a challenge in working with given limits. In this case, I replicated a handle to replace one that was made by a machine. Its fun to do these kinds of projects to be in touch with the materials and connect with what the leading brands are doing.
I tried to get back to traditional joinery with this piece above, one where the work is purely handmade. I was trying to challenge myself also in terms of tools - working with chisels and mallet, a very handcrafted approach. The piece is also special to me because it is my first work in oak - the dining table pictured on top.
A Study..
I was inspired by a vision of a ‘floating’ TV deck, something that defied gravity and was an experience that lightened up the living room. Initially this study consisted of working with veneer and its properties. The customer had a cat and they wanted the cat to pass through the piece easily and hide and play in the space created by it. The customer also wanted to blend the sheer wood of the piece with more naturalistic elements such as favourite house plants. And so I developed the two plant holding sections in the right corner of this image.
My work is about creating human connection…
The human body has no corners, and I feel connected to this cornerless approach when I think about shapes ….
How might I create a connection between the hard, the material with the immaterial, the human, the soft, the changing and the eternal? This is a driving ethos in my work and I love exploring this dimension.
