Recently, Mathieson Architects hosted an intimate evening for our clients at Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, joined by Sabine herself to speak about the exhibition and the ideas, materials and processes behind it.

 

Axis brings together, for the first time, two distinct bodies of Sabine’s work: cast resin pieces made in her Rotterdam studio and lacquered works created with Kawatsura Shikki artisans in Akita, Japan. Rather than existing as separate collections, the two were conceived in dialogue, with the resin works shaped in direct response to the lacquer.

 

It is a conversation between materials that behave in fundamentally different ways.

In the Sweep wall works, the same form is realised in translucent resin and lacquer. Light responds oppositely to each: the ridge of the resin darkens, while in lacquer it becomes lighter. Elsewhere, the deep gloss of the Yōkan works is set against the soft, matt surface of the guava-coloured Split console.

 

For us, this material-led way of working has an obvious resonance with architecture.

In developing the Yōkan works, lacquer introduced a very different material language. Created through Craft x Tech Japan with traditional lacquer artisans in Akita, the pieces bring Sabine’s contemporary approach into dialogue with an established craft tradition and a process built through layers, precision and time.

 

The resin works approach light differently again. Their surfaces and translucency reveal depth and geometry through movement, changing as the viewer shifts position and light moves across each form.

Hearing Sabine speak within the exhibition offered insight into the experimentation behind work that, in its finished form, appears remarkably clear and resolved.

 

Axis brings together different places and processes that have shaped Sabine’s practice: the light and space of New Zealand, the industrial opportunities of Rotterdam, the traditional lacquer craft of Japan and her longstanding relationship with Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert in Sydney.

 

It is perhaps this convergence that gives Axis its particular depth. Different places, processes and material traditions, gathered around a shared line of enquiry.

 

Our Our World series is a way of sharing the people, places and ideas that inform our practice beyond architecture itself. Spending an evening with Sabine and our clients, surrounded by the works of Axis, was an opportunity to consider material at its most elemental — and the curiosity, experimentation and technical knowledge that can sit behind an apparently simple form.

 

Our thanks to Sabine Marcelis and Sally Dan-Cuthbert for sharing the exhibition and the thinking behind it with us.