Reframe
Ivana Taylor
Adelaide, Australia | Woods: Hard maple, cherry and red oak
Ivana Taylor is a designer based in Adelaide, Australia. She completed a Bachelor of Design/ Art Education at UNSW, Sydney in 2018 and the Associate Program in the Furniture Studio at JamFactory Contemporary Craft & Design, Adelaide in 2020. Through her practice, she explores the relationship between textiles and timber. Most recently, Taylor shifted her focus from surface design to large-scale sculptural, woven, knotted or wrapped three-dimensional objects and furniture. She is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert.
'I was interested in how differently people talk about their experiences of isolation. I didn’t feel that mine was wholly negative and I found it required more complicated reflection to figure out exactly how much the situation has taught us.'
The design process
'My initial thoughts were that I was interested in how differently people talk about their experiences of isolation. I didn’t feel that mine was wholly negative and I found it required more complicated reflection to figure out exactly how much the situation has taught us,’ she says. ‘I wanted to do something a little more poetic, a little more narrative-based and something sculptural as well. The concept is very much about seeing how we see things.’
The making of the final piece
To understand the form of Reframe, Taylor modelled with clay for the first time in an effort to ape the capabilities of the CNC. Initially, she was going to make a single piece from hard maple before being persuaded to expanded the project by her mentor, Adam Markowitz. ‘He was really interested in how we could create a different effect and explore different material hollows. ‘I also found I wanted to explore the five axis CNC machine that the manufacturer Evostyle owns. I was thinking through the lens of the technology that would actually create the piece.’ Each layer is cut differently to expose the wood’s flesh.
The end result
Reframe is a triptych, with each separate piece made from seven layers of American red oak, hard maple and cherry respectively, which are held together by an invisible bronze rod. The form, according to Taylor, is ‘a distillation of a frame device’. As she points out, we are surrounded by frames, most notably the windows and doors of buildings but also the camera on our phones. ‘The lens through which you see something influences how you interpret it.’'