METALLURGY

As Lewis Kemmenoe’s first solo show, ‘METALLURGY’ is a singular expression of a practice defined by multiplicity. The works, all formally recognisable design objects, range from lights through to larger furnishings. In each case, at each scale, Kemmenoe uses the silhouette of the domestic and familiar as a frame within which to experiment.

Working on, and into, the material substance of each piece, he re-introduces us to the texture of the living environment. This act is a kind of alchemy – converting the functional form of each object into something more more poetic, contingent and personal. They eschew bare rationalism in favour of intuitive and conversational visual play.

Exacting precision forms an armature for happenstance. Biomorphic shapes jostle within industrial angles. Prior to this show, Lewis’ recent works have focussed on the improvisational reworking of self-similar materials into new and organic-feeling compositions.

‘METALLURGY’, however, represents the moment Kemmenoe allows material and textural approaches to leap and inter-mingle from one form to the next.

Aluminium flows mercury-like into the scooped contours of a wooden bench’s natural grain. While on a chair, intersecting- ing islands of blonde timber float suspended in sheer vertical sheets of metal. Everywhere is hybridization and a near-biological sense of symbiosis.

Fundamentally, these pieces are about the skin. The skin-experience of the user as they interact with Kemmenoes’ objects; and the tender, punctured, patchwork skin of the objects themselves.