Meet the Artist: James Howe
Our exhibition for Melbourne Design Week, Transcendence, is an exciting showcase of contemporary Australian design and we’re proud to introduce the work of furniture and lighting designer James Howe through this show.
Heavily inspired by iconic mid-century designer Børge Mogensen, Howe’s practice is driven by a constant search for order through design, and his J7 Daybed created for Transcendence is a wonderful example of this.
Constructed from timber, steel and Danish paper cord handwoven in Adelaide, the J7 Daybed is a contemporary and considered exploration of notions associated with minimalism.
Howe - who was one of six finalists in the 2017 Australian Furniture Design Award - hopes that anyone who encounters this piece through Transcendence will align with his own “experience of minimalism as a remedy for chaos”.
“The J7 daybed was born from my obsession with minimalism. My magnetic attraction to sparsity stems from a temperament which yearns for order, yet tends toward chaos. In my own life, the stripping away of unnecessary physical detritus serves as a counteragent to this chaos,” says Howe.
Drawing inspiration from observations in nature, city landscapes and utilitarian man-made objects, his pieces are textual, tactile, and imbued with a lightness and sophistication of form.
Transcendence - which will exhibit at Modern Times from March 12 - 22 - explores how our lives are shaped and influenced beyond the physical by the furniture and objects we surround ourselves with. It is an expansion on the central theme for Melbourne Design Week – ‘How Can Design Shape Life?’.
This event is part of Melbourne Design Week 2020, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.
