Page 7 - Intarsia Catalogue

INTARSIA

Luminous Iridescence

Intarsia is an homage to texture and balance in design; a personal statement of surfaces
and forms that draw from my over-lapping passions for antiquity and nature. Intarsia is a
collection of furniture and lighting made through the meticulous creation of surfaces and
forms by hand, piece-by-piece, making objects of vital harmony.

Intarsia: enigmatic, inscrutable, reaching towards the natural and ancient worlds.

I was inspired by the magical Acrolith statues of ancient Greece to design lighting where
the dark-bronze patinas contrast with the luminous whites and pales of calcite crystal, onyx
marble, shagreen or parchment.

I was seduced by the world of Lepidoptera; the butterfly wing up-close is made of thousands
of tiny iridescent scales in perfect geometry. I worked with lacquered eggshell, mother-
of-pearl, parchment, verdigris copper, shagreen and mica to make a whole shimmering
and luminous surface. The Cicada Bar Cabinet is one evocation of this idea; tiles of mica
alongside wonderfully reflective dark and pale figured veneers, raised on a lost-wax cast
wrapped stand and with a lustrous bronze-patina handle sculpted in the form of a Cicada
with its wings outstretched.

I revel in the sense of energy infused into the collection; from the ideas that conceived
them, to the many hands and eyes and conversations that took place as they grew, until the
beautiful moment when they came forth from the worskshop like butterflies from their
cocoons.

Sing me no songs of the daylight,
For the sun is the enemy of lovers
Sing me instead of shadows and darkness
And the memories of midnight.

Sappho of Lesbos