Tag: wood working

Henrique Oliveira

Henrique Oliveira, “Baitogogo”, Reclaimed Tapumes, 2013, Palais de Tokyo Museum, Paris, France

Designed by Henrique Oliveira to look like an impossibly tangled Gordian Knot, the Baitogogo sculpture was installed within an exhibition space at Palais de Tokyo as a mass of tree-like plywood branches.

The exhibition curators said “ Creating a spectacular and invasive Gordian Knot, Henrique Oliveira plays with Palais de Tokyo’s architecture, allowing a  work that combines the vegetal and the organic.”

The large installation was created from reclaimed tapumes – a plywood material traditionally used in Brazilian towns to construct the hoardings around construction sites. Oliveria collected the discarded tapumes from the streets of São Paulo, where he both lives and works. The veneer-like strips were bent into shape and nailed together to form the installation’s branches. Further wooden veneers were fixed to the structure to give it a bark-like texture and appearance.

Patrick Dougherty

Sculptures by Patrick Dougherty, Sapling Branches

In a career spanning four continents and three decades, internationally acclaimed environmental artist Patrick Dougherty has created over two hundred majestic sculptures out of nothing more than saplings.

“I think that part of my work’s allure is its impermanence, the life cycle that is built into the growth and decay of saplings. My focus has always been the process of building a work and allowing those who pass to enjoy the daily changes or drama of building a sculpture as well as the final product. However, the line between trash and treasure is thin, and the sculptures, like the sticks they are made from, begin to fade after two years.  Often the public imagines that a work of art should be made to last, but I believe that a sculpture, like a good flower bed, has its season.” – Patrick Dougherty

Jaehyo Lee

 

Sculptures and Furniture by Jaehyo Lee

Korean artist Jaehyo Lee creates sculptures and furniture pieces from metal and chopped wood. Yhese elements are bound together in such a way that the often-times linear building components become curved semi-geometric works of art.

Each piece crafted by Jaehyo Lee is both an engaging shape within a given space while also existing as an object with an inherently domestic purpose. The artist’s most recent exhibition, ‘Transformations’, is comprised of a series of useful art objects through which the artist has continued to actualize his exploration of the materiality of his chosen media.

Bill Reid

Bill Reid, “Raven and The First Men”, 1980, Yellow Cedar, .University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology

Canadian artist Bill Reid was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in January of 1920. His father was of Scottish-German descent and his mother was from the Raven/Wolg Clan of T’anuu, known as the Haida, one of the First Nations of the Pacific coast. Reid studied jewelry making at the Ryerson Institute of Technology and Haida art from his grandfather.

In 1951 Reid returned to Vancouver, where he established a studio on Granville Island, a suburban area of Vancouver. He became very interested in the artworks of his great-great-uncle Charles Edenshaw, a renowned Haida artist. As a result, Reid’s work began incorporating his ancestors’ visual traditions and mythology into his contemporary style.

“Raven and The First Men” depicts part of a Haida creation myth with the raven representing the Trickster. In this creation story, the raven Trickster opens an oyster shell on the beach to find the first Humans. The Raven coaxed them to leave the shell to join him in his wonderful world. Some of the humans were hesitant at first, but they were overcome by curiosity and eventually emerged from the partly open giant clamshell to become the first Haida.

The sculpture was carved from a giant block of laminated yellow cedar. The carving took two years to complete and was dedicated on April 1, 1980. A number of First Nation carvers also worked on the project, including Reggie Davidson, Jim Hart, and Gary Edenshaw. Working on the emerging little humans in the latter stages was Geroge Rammell, a sculptor in his own right. Bill Reid did most of the finishing carving.