Gareth Neal at CAA
Anne Table, American Walnut Photo: Damien Chapman
Furniture maker Gareth Neal’s first solo show has opened at Contemporary Applied Arts and runs until 2 May.
Neal first came to public attention in 2007 when his console table Anne was shortlisted for the 100% Design Blueprint Awards. As well generating lots of general interest, importantly the table caught the eye of a manufacturing company who made it for nothing and then exhibited it in Milan last year, alongside a new piece, George. Both pieces are based on traditional furniture shapes but in both the traditional shape lurks as a shadow trapped within layers of precisely carved horizontal bands of wood. Neal hacks away at these layers of wood to give the pieces a battered, aged look, more in keeping with their 18th-century soul than the 21st-century technology used in their creation.
On show at the CAA exhibition will be new work, including an Anne chair, new versions of the Anne table and George chest and a long bench as well as a series of smaller, non-functional solid vessel forms.
www.caa.org.uk
