Charlie Whinney at Harvey Nichols
Bent-wood artist Charlie Whinney has created a dramatic new installation for London’s Harvey Nichols summer window display (on show until end of August before touring to regional store branches)
Harvey Nichols has a good track record for commissioning interesting and innovative window displays and this latest installation is no exception. Spirit of the Forest, is a 50-metre-long abstract sculpture which curves and twists its way across the whole shop front like a banner fluttering in the wind. The piece is made entirely out of wood, primarily bent oak and ash but also with details worked in real branches, roots and tree stumps.
The man behind the scheme, Charlie Whinney, was one of three young graduates who set up the Laurent-Perrier award-winning firm Sixixis in 2007 (along with Tom Raffield and Chris Jarratt). The company specialised in steam-bending ethically sourced wood to create furniture and other products, and now Whinney has set up on his own in order to focus on bigger, more architectural projects, although still with the same emphasis on ethical issues and sustainability. Recent work includes DNA, a 30-metre oak sculpture made for Cambridge University, and there’s also a ‘glimmer screen’ for a new restaurant in Texas and a rattan sculpture for a resort in Kuala Lumpur in the pipeline.
www.charliewhinney.com
