Tuomas Kuure ☆ 1984 Tampere, Finland. ♟Height: 183cm Weight: 75kg
The stream of life brought me to building art furniture in Bilbao, Spain. In the following I will describe one way of woodworking. Excluding the glasswork and fittings I’m making all the working stages for the pieces by myself. From the first sketch starts the mission of finding the steps to engineer and craft a durable piece of furniture. A piece that often seeks to address the timeless, eternal, or the human condition.
During the process solutions are popping up one by one. I trust in structural tests, sheer craftsmanship and patience for letting the magical moments of coincidence happen. As a result appears a small world composed of details, textures and curves.
I’m woodworking because it is an intensive medium of being in touch with form, colour and time. It makes me happy and gives me peace of mind. That is what I want to transmit to the people walking beside me.
“Tuomas worked in an extremely organised way and his attention to the detail was meticulous”
– Sam Scott, Constructive and Co, London
“His work ethics and his attitude were unquestionable. his work was always of a high quality”
– Pascal Snoeck, Snoeck-Wilke, Hamburg
My thoughts about art furniture
Besides serving the actual and the decorative purpose, some furniture may have the ability to fulfil the main function of an art piece. A piece of furniture can move us, make us think, guide us in front of the purest most graceful landscapes of human mind. Furthermore, because of some key differences in their respective working processes, there is a necessity for the definition “art furniture”. There are many great craftsmen walking that path yet the pair of words seldomly appears together. Wendell Castle is said to be the father of the movement but Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima and Sam Maloof have been strongly marking the way as well.
Executing structural solutions that enable a craftsman to express the motive of a piece often employ unthinkable amount of time. Time that breeds the motive stronger because of how the thoughts fly with the hands in motion. Therefore in the art furniture time, more than anything, measures the amount of both expressive and woodworking detail. And the attention to the detail, more than anything, is love for touching the material.
This art furniture endeavour is a yield of the welfare society where everything was presented possible to reach in pursuit of happiness. Where the greatness and the smallness of us is so effortlessly and piercingly on display by travelling in reality or virtual reality. Sometimes expressing with abstract, others symbolic or impressionistic means, the concepts are well fitting to the post contemporary paradigm. The pieces are made by a person who couldn’t be a designer, a cabinet maker, a sculptor in this era, but wanted to fly over all the fields.
WOOD CV
Born: Tampere, Finland 1984
Lives: Bilbao, Spain
Education
Vocational Qualification in Crafts and Design, Cabinet maker; Omnia, the Joint Authority of Education in Espoo Region (Vocational college); 8/2008-6/2011
Training
Cabinet making; Puusepänliike Kulma, Helsinki; 2013
Cabinet making; Snoeck-Wilke tischlerei, Hamburg; 2012
Cabinet making; Constructive&co, London; 2011
Building the set structures; National Opera of Finland, Helsinki; 2010
Cabinet making; Puusepänliike Kulma, Helsinki; 2010
Working
Art furniture design&crafting, Bilbao; since march 2014
Collaboration with Tick Table Legs US, International Contemporary Furniture Fair, ICFF, Javits Center, New York; 2015
Bespoke collaboration, private clients: Bedside tables, Wardrobe and Bathroom Doors&Panels, Bar&Kitchen Cabinet, Room Divider, Bar, Shelves, Table top. Woodwork, Bilbao 2016
Competition
The 9th Cheongju International Craft Competition, South Korea; 13 Minutes; Honorable mention.
Exhibition
2015 Cheongju International Craft Biennale, Cheongju, South Korea
Trust the rhythm, Espacio Bizkaia Creativa, Provincial Council of Bizkaia, Bilbao, Spain
Leap of faith – TAKI183 installation, Mongolia Gunea, Bilbao, Spain