Fantastic Elastic

Back in 2017 whilst driving around Tuscany on a sightseeing, eating and drinking holiday we stopped off for a night in San Gimignano.

It’s one of Italy’s most spectacular hill-towns, known for its surviving medieval towers. I climbed the tallest one in this picture. It has stunning quintessential views of the Tuscan countryside.

Researching before the holiday I realised our visit would coincide with an Antony Gormley exhibition at Galleria Continua in San Gimignano and made a mental note to visit.

LOST HORIZON II

Galleria Continua is a bit of rabbit warren and in the large lower floor space, a Antony Gormley piece called LOST HORIZON II had been installed. The artwork used 21 kilometres of silk-wrapped bungee strung from floor to ceiling in 5,000 vertical, taut silk lines.

Visitors were encouraged to move among the bungee becoming part of the exhibit. Making your way into the forest of taut bungees your sense of space and distance became confused. It felt like you had been sucked into a three dimensional barcode.

I stayed for an hour or so taking pictures as the exhibit lent itself to abstract patterns and textures.

Product Ideas

Back home I converted the series of single and double exposures I took to black and white.

These were the starting point for this collection. The initial images were modified in Photoshop increasing the contrast, inverting and toning them.

The images suite large one of designs like cushions and tabletops.

The printed table tops feature either transfer or direct to media prints onto birch plywood. These are then combined with hairpin legs to create unique one-off coffee and occasional tables.