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How many new ways are there to make a table? Perhaps, a bit like chess, the possibilities are endless but still based on the same moves. It takes a rare imagination to surprise us; to challenge all that we have seen before.
Gareth Neal trained at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education in High Wycombe (at the heart of the English furniture tradition) where he graduated in 1996. Already he is in demand. He has featured in thirteen exhibitions in three years, including 'Contemporary Decorative Arts' at Sothebys in both 1997 and 1999. Thanks to his skills and commitment, he has established himself as an energetic member of Fred Baier's workshop in Pewsey, Wiltshire.
He has chosen good company. A passion for strong design emanates from Pewsey these days. But Gareth is no acolyte. His designs are his own; the ideas and images coming deep from within. What makes them so unorthodox is that he thinks in extremes. It is the energy of opposites that drives him and we, as viewers, are forced to think and re-appraise.
Gareth believes in his talent and the power of his ideas. His designs are at the same time both serious and humorous; spiky and voluptuous; organic and structural. Nothing in his work takes the easy option. He invites us into his imagination and offers a fresh and very individual perspective.
He describes himself as a functional artist and his furniture as useful sculptures. coming from an artistic background, he has grown up with the traditional boundaries between craft, decorative art and fine art but rejects such divisions as artificial. The point is to create objects of meaning and interest, regardless of category. "Fun and energy formulated to the modern day," as he puts it.
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