- Design Inspo
The Best Modern Wood Sculpture Artists
Roxanne Robinson
Chris Lehrecke came of age in the New York design community of the 1980s, firmly planted among the contemporary and avant-garde art scene. However, through his skill as a craftsman and visionary, he pursued a different, more restrained aesthetic, indicative of a rational and organic design approach. In fact, so organic that a bare branch often serves as a base of a smooth, sculpted table for a series designed with wife and jeweler Gabriella Kiss.
Julian Watts has built an impressive reputation as a mast wood sculptor this past decade. While adept at several iterations, sculptures and objects notwithstanding, it’s the wall pieces that have made Watts a sought-after designer. Using traditional wood-carving and furniture-making techniques to explore the space between form and function, Watts brings a sense of wonderment and unique perspective to the medium. Often using pre-existing everyday objects as starting points, the artist explores the functional and cultural aspects of extreme and surreal moments. The result allows for reconsideration of their preconceptions of ordinary, everyday, often banal items. While Watts has displayed around the globe, the breadth of his work’s body is found via Patrick Parrish, the NYC-based gallery known for exhibiting young and emerging artists.
For sculptor Eleonor Lakelin, the more decay, the better it is to create her stunning vases and small sculptures from wood. In fact, the London-based artist uses only fallen trees from Britain. She likens her approach to peeling away the bark and layers of wood to discover the organic disarray below the surface. Generally, Lakelin achieves this through carving and sandblasting; skills gained whilst taking up cabinetry in 1995 following educational project work.
Since 2011 she has turned her focus solely to larger-scale hollowed and carved pieces, something she claims she needed to teach herself to do. Her work has been exhibited at the V&A museum, among others, and challenges a new perspective on nature’s complexity. Continuously, her work explores the rhythm of growth, the eroding power of the elements, and time passing. The award-winning sculptor is represented by the Sarah Myerscough Gallery in London.
Upon leaving his career in architecture in 2018, Nicholas Shurey chose to become a sculptor. Of course, he chose a material for which he developed a fondness for growing up in the countryside of Southwest England. Wood. He especially loved being amongst trees. Next, he spent a year working on a farm and learning to sculpt. The rest, as they say, is history. Based in Copenhagen, ultimately one of the world’s top design spots, Shurey has already made a name for himself, winning a New Makers award.
With an eye towards sustainability and accountability, the sculptor sources reclaimed wood from the city’s supply of felled trees. Shurey is drawn to wood for the organic forms that allow for smooth curves. He insists sculpture should invite touch from its viewer. His work is marked by smooth, curved, and is highly sensual. Most recently, he collaborated with fashion designer Jun Takahashi of UNDERCOVER, creating the house mascot in wood.
While his materials range from marble, silk fabrics to steel grids, Reinoso’s most notorious work, the Spaghetti bench, is made from wood. Following a stint in the corporate world as an artistic director, he explored the classic No. 14 Thonet bistro chair and expanded its dimensions. Reinoso elongated the bentwood back, creating a wood stream off of the chair, made it rest mid-air by bending its back, and disheveled the seat to create a train of wicker.
Subsequently, this work directed the Spaghetti bench, which reimagined the ordinary park bench. For example, once fulfilling the seat’s role, Reinoso has elongated the bench’s slats to become a tree and root-like, reminding the viewer of its original growing and climbing nature. Like the Thonet chair before, the bench displays a wry sense of humor, especially when shown in a standard-setting such as a park. Here the benches fulfill their purpose while letting the true wood nature evolve.
With limitless imagination, Bengtsson drives the archetypal forms of typical furniture and redefines its boundaries. For example, after the Slice chair, the designer’s most intricate and complex piece is the Growth dining table, whose base resembles an interconnected jumble of tree roots. As the designer told Alistair Robinson for his profile, “My furniture is about challenging your senses: that is its function. Mission accomplished.
