Fantastical Fumi

The Fumi gallery do hold some eye wateringly good art and design pieces.  It is always a real pleasure to see beautifully crafted and designed work.  

The work of an artist they are showing, Zoe Ouvrier fills me with such pleasure.  She uses the traditional methods in book and scroll making to engrave natural materials. With nature as her inspiration, she creates unique pieces hand carved from plywood as well as paintings and lace-adorned decorative screens.

In these wooden screens Ouvrier has chiselled depictions of tree forms blowing in the wind, which portray the tree progressing through the different seasons.

Gallery FUMI was the first design gallery to open in Shoreditch, London, in 2008. Its directors, Valerio Capo and Sam Pratt, have since made it into a fixture of the London design scene through a series of groundbreaking shows.  I first came across Fumi as they were exhibitors at the Pavilion of Art & Design in Paris where they showed the work of Faye Toogood, an British designer whose work I love - her Portland stone lamp and this table, including a block of Portland stone, are favourites.

Gallery FUMI specialises in design pieces, usually produced in a limited edition or as a one-off commission, that while still functional can often teeter on the very edge of usability.