A Self-Taught London Designer On How to Make Furniture That’s Poetic But Not Pretentious | Sight Unseen
Photography by Richard Round Turner
“I have been attempting to make furniture that has a quiet tension in it — things that possess a slightly dream-like quality, but also have a bit of a sense of humor. It’s hard to say what exactly I want the pieces to do, but I think that if there is enough subtle weirdness built into something, it has the ability to alter the way a person interacts with it, which is sort of like the object having agency.” — EJR Barnes
An object can also be a feeling. An object can be transcendent. A chair — a perspective-altering portal. A table — the threshold to an otherworldly dimension.
Well, why not?
For East London-based designer and artist Elliot Barnes, aka EJR Barnes, this type of transformational materialism is made possible by way of an intentionally porous spectrum of influences and expressions — as well as an interest in the conceptual right alongside the practical.
The self-taught Barnes — who began making furniture only a few years ago — is interested in the ways furniture can become poetic or dreamlike when reframed with unexpected materials, forms, and juxtapositions. His creations engage a wide range of materials and techniques — birch plywood, gilded silver leaf, lacquered oak, powder-coated steel, pressed cane, cork, paper pulp slathered in wheat paste, even faux fur or scruffy suedes. Through all of this experimentation, Barnes seeks a quiet sort of subversion, one whose presence is felt, rather than heard, individually intuited rather than universally transcribed. At the end of the day, Barnes insists that his undeniably whimsical creations remain absolutely functional. Here, Barnes reflects on his approach, his practical philosophy, and more. (And click here to obsess over 10 of Barnes’s favorite vintage furniture finds.)