Made Locally in Brunswick, Victoria

WINNING BID/ $200 (kale d. NSW)

We wanted to donate proceeds from our work to Foundation House: the Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture. The Foundation helps refugees and asylum seekers who have been through the most awful trauma to start a new life.

THE Product/ TEGL BOWL

Anne and Stephen have been friends for many years, but this is the first time they have collaborated on a creative work. They wanted to combine the vitality and brilliance of Anne's flower paintings with the more formal geometry of Stephen's Tegl Bowl.

Anne’s subject for her painting is water lilies reminiscent of Monet’s garden. Her aim was to use rich and bright colours to evoke the fullness of life in the world we live in. The blue of the water can be very calming, which we need in times of change. However, beneath the water lies an unknown world. When we encounter change we can avoid it or delve into the unknown. Water lily leaves are large and flat and provide shelter and protection but they also hide the mysterious unknown. The splashes of pink and white represent the moments of intense pleasure we experience in new life, particularly when looking back at our achievements, the challenges we have met head on and out of the depths have created something new. 

Stephen has an interest in mathematics, and particularly in mathematics underlying natural processes. The Tegl bowl is based on diamond shapes with proportions equal to the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio has been used as a proportioning system by architects from the Ancient Greeks to 20th Century masters such as Le Corbusier. The golden ratio can also be seen the arrangement of leaves and branches along the stems of plants, the skeletons of animals and the geometry of crystals.

Stephen and Anne thought combining the organic natural forms of flowers, with the fixed rigid geometry of the Tegl bowl would provoke a vibrant tension. At the same time, they are referencing the postmodern penchant for deconstruction, with some deconstruction and reconstruction of their own!

Timber/  Exterior Grade Birch Plywood

Painting/  Acrylic applied directly to the ply after priming with three coats of acrylic gesso. The painting is compiled in stages using artist quality acrylic paints applied with brush and palette knife.

Finish/  Two coats of water-based polyurethane but because of the paints, it is not listed as food-safe.

Dimensions/  36cm x 36cm x 18cm

Location/ Brunswick, Victoria

Bidding now closed

THE MAKER/ Stephen ZiguraS

Stephen has been a lifelong woodworker, and has been making furniture since 2002. In 2010, Stephen and his partner moved to Denmark. While there, he started woodworking full-time, and set up a business to make custom-designed furniture.

Like many woodworkers, Stephen says he has been influenced by the simplicity and harmony of the Arts and Crafts movement, Danish Modern furniture, and traditional Japanese joinery. He is also fascinated with mathematics, as can be seen in the use of complex geometries in recent work such as the S(l)ide Table, and the Tegl Bowl.

After living in Copenhagen for two years, Stephen now lives and works back in Melbourne, producing homewares and bespoke furniture through his business Eco Wood Design.

View Stephen's Handkrafted Profile here.

the Artist/ Anne Ellison

Even as a young child growing up in North Queensland, Anne delighted in the vibrancy, richness fragrances of tropical plants and flowers. Anne has studied botanical and floral art in Melbourne, expanding her floral repertoire to include much loved favourites; roses, peonies, oriental orchids and lilies and of course native flowers.  Today her works range from small to larger oils on canvas. Her wish is that the viewer is captured for a moment and transported away from the bustle of everyday life, that they too might feel inspired by graceful, delicate and peaceful world of flowers.

View Anne's Bluethumb Profile here.