Vault
Twig
Maker: Jamie McLellan
Courtesy of the designer
Installation image
Maker: Jamie McLellan
Courtesy of the designer
Jamie McLellan
18 November 2009 - 19 December 2009
Over the years I have learned to live with and celebrate my inner engineer. More and more I am finding the beauty of an object lies in its engineering, how it's put together. I find both a purity in exposing this and at the same time a higher a level of detail being possible without the need for anything superflous.
The Flyover table illustrates this celebration, being purely constructed in a language consisting of metal working folds, flange's, machined faces and threaded fastenings. The graphic silhouette of an object is also important to me, as much as the details up close. I think this has come from years of drawing windsurfing sails, paying attention to them up close and simultaneously considering how they look from a distance. The Twig coat stand is so simple it really is all about the silhouette, and trying to achieve a kind of visual and mathematical balance.
This assemblage of pieces also contains some fragments from earlier in my professional career. The Spin Candelabra and the Cage Light were designed whilst working as Senior Designer for Tom Dixon in the UK. These pieces really completed my Tom Dixon 'Right Of Passage' and left me infused with a love of working in metals, not to mention they were produced in my favourite manufacturing destination to date - India. These pieces I consider to be the beginning of my fascination with structural beauty.
The cast iron Lean Light was also designed for Tom Dixon, but from my newly formed studio back in New Zealand. This was more about a cute silhouette utilising cast metal that had become popular within the office as a result of the Spin Candelabra.
The pieces on display really only show one part of my design practice, only one of my split personalities as a designer. Despite this, they nevertheless exhibit many of the qualities I try to infuse in anything I design from a bicycle to a piece of furniture.
Jamie McLellan
Jamie McLellan is a New Zealand designer. His abilities were first recognized in the early 2000's with several outstanding design projects for the UK based design firm, Tom Dixon. McLellan has since moved back to New Zealand, setting up and developing an independent design studio with an international clientele. McLellan says "the fact that half of my work is based outside of New Zealand is due not so much to a conscious choice, but due to necessity. Necessity not only to sustain myself as a designer with a slightly niche way of operating, but perhaps more importantly working offshore helps me to remain inspired and allows me to work on projects sometimes not possible within New Zealand's shores."