The exhibit “Torqued and Twisted: Bentwood Today,” which opens on Monday, Oct. 29, in the Storrs Gallery, explores the work of nine internationally known furniture makers and sculptors who use the technique of bending wood in innovative, unusual or eloquent ways.
Wood bending is typically accomplished through one of three approaches: steaming, laminating or greenwood bending. Steaming requires the application of heat and moisture to allow the wood fibers to bend and slide against each other. The part bent is clamped to a form and allowed to cool and dry into a new configuration. Laminating involves using layers of wood cut thin enough to become flexible. The flexible strips are clamped against a form with adhesive between each layer until the adhesive cures, locking the laminations into the new configuration. Greenwood bending uses freshly cut small-diameter saplings, often willow, which are inherently flexible due to the high moisture content in the freshly cut wood.
“Torqued and Twisted: Bentwood Today” features works by artists Frank Gehry, Matthias Pliessnig, Michael Cooper, Jeremy Holmes, Michael Jarvi, Clifton Monteith, Yuir Kobayashi, Don Miller, as well as Michael Thonet, whose 19th-century Austrian workshop creations came to symbolize the modern movement in furniture design.
Tom Loeser, associate professor, University of Madison-Wisconsin, and Katie Lee, assistant director and curator of the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, a regional center of UNC Asheville located on the institution’s Kellogg Campus in Hendersonville, developed the exhibit.
The Storrs Gallery will host an opening reception for the exhibit at 5:30 p.m., Oct. 29; the display runs through Thursday, Nov. 28.