Unique one of a kind sculpture
Highlights: three hand cut butterfly inlays, crushed lapis lazuli inlay, hand cut joinery and wedges, carved end piece flourishes
Materials: ash, bubinga, cherry, mahogany, maple, walnut, and white oak
Lapis Lazuli inlay
Clear Satin Finish, Colored Hemp String
Dimensions: Height: 3'9" Width: 5' Depth: 6"
The Flora series encapsulates the beauty found in the diversity between perfection and imperfection. Oliver’s distinctive style challenges woodworking tradition of machining wood into modular components by alternatively guiding the wood into shape within a liberal tolerance and allowing the piece to retain the tree’s vitality.
The curves are energetic, diverging into concentric crescents and rejoining to intersect and penetrate pieces of wood. The curvilinear wood transforms into organic flourishes to celebrate the joy of life.
Oliver hand-braids the colored strings to form patterned lines in contrast with the natural hues of the wood. Flora’s braided hemp tangles the dynamic curves, twists, and loops into tension causing the eye to wander around the sculpture’s massive scape. This is analogous to how humans are relational beings intertwined in tension between outside forces and their own will.
The Flora series has the extraordinary potential to unpack the sensorial abilities of our human experience as the eye moves over split wood pieces, hand tool marks, and surfaces with a smooth finish. Disfigured wood is accentuated with inlay and loose joinery is mended with wedges. The different degrees of refinement illustrate how people are not complete, but in a state of growth or decay.
