Internationally renowned Adelaide furniture designer Khai Liew presents a collection of powerfully innovative works that draw on profound cultural and design traditions to posit new concepts of what contemporary Australian furniture might look like.
In developing works for this exhibition Khai created delicate models in paper, folding and creasing to form maquettes, later to be recreated in fine timbers.
The angular paper folding process is apparent in the finished work. Pieces occupy space and support themselves much like Japanese origami constructs, challenging conventional notions of dimensional relationships and utility.
Khai respects traditions and cultural influences, subtly absorbing and transforming to express them in new contemporary forms.
Designs of northern Europe have long inspired Khai, but he also trawls provincial French flea markets, fossicking for overlooked treasures, unearthing interesting well-made objects and discovering the simple beauty of traditionally crafted design solutions.
The result in this exhibition is a unified, calm and minimalist personal design aesthetic, achieved via highly resolved combinations of formal rhythm and harmony, united by a measured play of light and shade (the origami influence).
The title for the exhibition refers in part to local timber getting history; the Tiersmen of the Adelaide Hills who in the 1830’s were our first woodworking European settlers and Linenfold, a particular symbolic wood carving and construction technique principally associated with 15th and 16th century UK and European ecclesiastical carpentry in which wood panels were made to resemble folded linen cloth.
Khai is a collectible furniture maker. His work is represented in public and private collections across the nation; particularly the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
The Khai Liew exhibition is to be held from 9 June – 22 July at Jam Factory Contemporary Craft & Design.
