2018 Artist David Trubridge
The Hawke’s Bay Wine Auction presents one major artwork by a feature artist each year.
David’s work came to prominence in 2001 when the Italian design house Cappellini bought the rights for Body Raft. The Coral light followed in 2004 for DTL, establishing a blueprint for kit-set products that minimised environmental footprint. The company is proud to hold Life Cycle Assessments (LCA’s) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
David’s designs have featured in countless international publications including the most influential, as an instigator of the trend of ‘raw sophistication’ and as an exemplar of environmentally responsible design. In 2008 the French magazine Express listed him as one of the top 15 designers in the world, and in 2012 the Pompidou Centre in Paris purchased his ‘Icarus’ installation for its permanent collection.
The Strands of Life
Weaving has been an essential part of my vocabulary ever since I learnt to weave hats from coconut leaves in the Pacific islands. It is a timeless craft that humans have used for millennia. Recently I was in Cambodia being taught to weave rattan and bamboo by local craftspeople, and this gave me a whole lot more respect for these traditional crafts which are so sorely undervalued.
This new artwork for the Hawke’s Bay Wine Auction and the Wildflower exhibition explores that vocabulary in new territory using a much more intransigent material, braided stainless steel wire — several kilometres of it.
The weaving takes the form of a tree reaching up and branching out like a nikau or punga, suggesting the interwoven patterns of life. In the Māori world weaving is used as a powerful metaphor for the lines of ancestral descent that both entwine and bifurcate, like an inverted tree.
