‘Future Remains’ is an exhibition at Craft Victoria in Melbourne that presents the work of seven female designer/makers whose principle material is wood. Works include furniture, sculpture and jewellery, each made with a different timber and technique.
Melbourne-based artist Makiko Ryujin draws on her Japanese heritage in the sculptural work LOOP, a series of wood-turned objects inspired by Tōrō; traditional Japanese lanterns found in Buddhist temples. The timber is blackened by fire, a reference to the Japanese cultural burning ritual ‘Otakiage’.
Linda Fredheim’s work is also sculptural, this time, a series of wooden handbags made with timber, with rubber handles, hinges and lined with neoprene fabric. These are inspired by the shapes and colours of the Bauhaus, and in particular, the forms and colours taught to Bauhaus students in their introductory course. Based in Hobart, Fredheim’s works are made from Tasmanian Blackwood offcuts.
Fellow Tasmanian Laura McCusker’s work in this exhibition is a table called Overpass, whose form echoes a concrete overpass along the highway at Cornelian Bay. “There is a concrete overpass along the highway at Cornelian Bay that I pass every day on my way to work. It is beautiful and yet I suspect I am the only one who notices.” The table is made of Tasmanian Oak, a timber that McCusker notes is not Oak at all but an umbrella term for up to five different species of Eucalyptus.
Three more furniture pieces are included in the exhibition. Sydney-based Chi Yusef’s Daily Rituals Table and Daily Rituals Stool is made of American Walnut with ebony inlay and leather seat. Melbourne’s Alexsandra Pontonio’s Biplane Sideboard is made in American White Ash, a species of timber currently being felled due to a threat from a borer beetle. And Perth-based Olive Gill-Hille is exhibiting the Kilcarnup Coffee Table whose hand-carved sculptural forms are inspired by the rock formations on Kilcarnup beach.
There is also jewellery design in this exhibition – Anke Kindle’s Nipple Brush Brooches are a series of wearable brooches made of timber and bristles that form a brush to be worn on the body. From Huon Pine to Macrocarpa, River Red Gum and Buckland Walnut, each piece of timber was selected carefully to “explore[s] the preciousness of timber” while the brush was selected “as a political object symbolising women’s work”.
This exhibition highlights the important work being done by women in the field of timber furniture making, an occupation long dominated by men. These works vary in scale, aesthetic and use, but they all come from a deep understanding of the material of timber.
More on Craft Victoria
