Laurence Moracchini, Oak bowl

Laurence Moracchini has worked with wood all her life. She feels a communion with this ‘noble material,’ as she calls it. The act of working with wood animates her senses: the smell of woodcarvings, the feel of the grain, the variability of colour and quality.  

Her objects are made in collaboration with each piece of wood, enhancing its unique character: its patterns, its quirks. Working with local, reclaimed wood brings discovery and controlled accident. There is a dialogue with each piece; the design of the final form developing as the wood talks to her. As Laurence carves, she will discover a split, a section of rot, or a particularly beautiful pattern of blight which will become the focal point of the object. This is what excites her: finding the imperfections.  

Her process is a conversation between damage and repair. The mending of breakage is elevated instead of hidden: her burnished copper splints glinting out from the blackness of her charred pieces. The way she finishes the piece is informed by the quality she wishes to exacerbate. If the grain is particularly strong, as with the interior of Oak Bowl, Laurence will simply oil the piece to finish it, highlighting the wood’s natural patination. More often, she will char and wax her pieces, protecting the wood and encouraging the light to play upon the grain’s undulations. The char both preserves and transforms, calling to Laurence’s thematic preoccupations of repair and renewal, pain and healing.  

Her work dances a tension between the functional and the decorative, with her most recent pieces disrupting and playing with this blur. Ash Vase with Window, is obstructed from fulfilling its function as a vase with its low, circular opening. After a long time making functional objects, Laurence is now focusing on pushing the material to something beyond functionality: creating sculptural pieces which are tensile and playful.   

Laurence’s pieces are part of our exhibition TERROIR & TEXTURE taking place at Artelium Wine Estate from the 1st-17th November.