CHAIR THAT EMERGED FROM THE RUINS OF LIVERPOOL DOCKS - MADE OF SHIP’S STEEL HAWSER CABLE – IS NOW IN LONDON’S POSHEST FURNITUE GALLERY PRICED ￡3,420

THE CHAIR’S CREATOR IS ARTIST AND WRITER, NICK?WRIGHT, CO-AUTHOR OF ‘CUT AND SHUT’ THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ?BOOK ON THE HISTORY OF CREATIVE SALVAGE

THE CHAIR’S ?GODPARENTS ARE LEGENDARY TOM DIXON, THE INDUSTRIAL STYLE DESIGNER WHO CREATED INTERIORS FOR TERENCE CONRAN, VIVIENNE WESTWOOD AND HABITAT; AND THE FRENCH COUNTESS, ?LILIANE FAWCETT, OWNER?OF ?‘THEMES AND VARIATONS’

The earliest origins of this striking new chair is a boy sketching amid the rusty stanchions and ship’s hawsers of Liverpool’s ghostly derelict Albert Dock.

Nick Wright explains how his chair came to be. “My first memory is the foghorns on the Mersey. As a kid, my sole talent was for art, my favourite place, Liverpool’s derelict Albert dock. After School I would go sit beneath the vaulted colonnade looking out onto the rain plucked basin, drawing alternately on an exercise book and an Embassy Filter. The deserted building was a lesson in proportion, the rusting boats sinking in the basin were held up by hawsers stretched from the iron bollards. The strength of that steel rope, enough it seemed to hold the weight of the whole sinking city, appeared miraculous.”

“During lockdown I took to walking along the Lea River Navigation where I again noticed steel rope coiled on the decks of Dutch barges and, still the kid who can’t sleep for stupid ideas running around in the dark, played with ways of “freezing” those shapes.”

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“An idea formed and I went to James Garner, a metal worker who has worked with Tom Dixon since the 80s. The initial idea didn’t work. We tried again. We tried every which way until …. Having perfected the process, I paid a patent lawyer. There were no patents on the process. Nor were there the tens of thousands needed to effectively protect it. Besides, I could think of no use for it that might reward even the smallest investment – except maybe a chair.”

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It is no surprise that this chair flowed from the creative pen of Nick Wright. When Cut and Shut was published Anna Trench in Its Nice That, wrote: “In the thick of 1980s political dissent, Creative Salvage welded art, furniture, hip-hop and junk metal to change the course of design. Spearheaded by the likes of Tom Dixon and Ron Arad and inspired by a broad mash-up of influences, the anarchic design of Creative Salvage has now become (almost) establishment.”

Nick Wright co-author of ‘Cut and Shut’ the history of creative salvage

Cut and Shut, The History of Creative Salvage, charts the fascinating development of the movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s and features interviews with many of today’s leading British designers. Unable to find manufacturers for their early designs, they became DIY makers using scrap metal or readily available industrial materials in novel ways. The results were some of the most anarchic furniture design ever produced and both the DIY spirit and innovative use of materials were inspirational to co-author Nick Wright who has created a brilliantly elegant piece of supressed anarchy himself, made of flexing steel hawser cable welded into a striking stasis.

He describes taking the first attempt at a chair to the gallery. “There is only one London gallery for me. Liliane Fawcett opened Themes and Variations in 1984. She showed Tom Dixon’s early work, Mark Brazier-Jones’, Danny Lane’s, and Ron Arad’s. She represents Fornasetti in the UK and produced the first edition of Andre Dubreuil’s Spine chair. I was beyond nervous.”

Nick Wright in his youth – smoking an Embasy filter.

“I said I had invented a process for solidifying steel rope and made a chair from the material. Liliane said the form was derivative of Andre Dubreuil. I showed her a knot in hemp rope suggestive of the possibilities in steel. She liked the knot. I showed her a drawing on an envelope. She made a French sound. Then she gave me the crucial piece of advice, “If it’s new material, you should exploit its unique properties.”

“That the resultant chair is going in the window of Themes and Variations is something I find so unbelievable, I have to mentally retrace my steps to understand how it could possibly have happened.”

“Taking heed of Lilliane’s advice, I had taken advantage of the rope’s flexibility to make a Celtic knot on the floor, my intention to create a flat seat and, happy with the result, I picked it up by the sides only to find the seat bellied – and the back rose. That accidental form suggested a more elegant chair than any intended. In that sense I didn’t design this chair. I’m not a designer. Rather, I chose to capture a form I found beautiful.?And I’ve been doing that since I first wandered into the Albert dock.”

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FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

JULIAN ROUP OF BENDIGO COMMUNICATIONS

[email protected]

0044 07970 563958

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