Design Matters

Design Matters

22 March - 10 May

David Colwell
Andrew Pearson, Philippine Sowerby, Sally James Thomas and Sue Hiley Harris

Good design does matter, attention to detail, functionality and aesthetics lift the senses and  improve the quality of our lives.  

The Artists - 

David Colwell 

David Colwell is one of the UK’s most respected furniture designers, renowned for creating human-centred designs that address the social, environmental, and practical challenges of contemporary living. Trained in Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art (1975–1978), he has built a reputation for work that combines material intelligence, ergonomic sensitivity, and enduring aesthetic clarity.

Before establishing Trannon Furniture in Powys, Colwell ran a successful design practice on London’s King’s Road and was retained by ICI Plastics for product design and J. Walter Thompson for interior and workplace design. His career reflects a rare balance between commercial innovation and deep craft integrity.

Colwell’s work has received numerous awards and is represented in major public and private collections across Europe and North America, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Vitra Design Museum, and the Design Museum London. His furniture has been widely published and continues to influence contemporary discourse around sustainable, high-quality making.

His iconic Contour Chair marks a turning point in his practice, reflecting his shift from early experimentation with plastics to working with natural materials and sustainable craft. Celebrated for its sculptural form and ergonomic intelligence, the chair embodies his commitment to comfort, material integrity, and thoughtful design.

He has maintained an active international presence as an educator, researcher, and practitioner, including residencies and visiting professorships in the UK, USA, and Australia, alongside research projects exploring sustainable material use worldwide.

Today, based in Presteigne, Wales, Colwell continues to design and make furniture that reflects a deep engagement with place, process, and wellbeing, with a particular focus on the essential role of seating in everyday life.

Education: Royal College of Art, London Furniture Design

Selected Awards: Wood Award, Innovation Prize — Achair (2010), Creative Wales Award (2009–2010), Silver Medal, 3D Design Awards, Royal College of Art, Public Seating Award, National Museum of Wales — Sit 94, FX Green Seating Award — C3 Stacking Chair, Four Guild Marks, Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers, (C1 Recliner & Footstool, C3 Stacking Chair, Ash Round Tables, T2 Extending Table), Design Mark Guild Roxi Chair, Isabel & URI collaboration

Professional Indexes: Crafts Council Index, AXIS, Southern Arts, Commissions East, South West Arts, Public Arts

Publications:

Lesley Jackson, Modern British Furniture, V&A Publications (2013)

Selected Public Collections: 

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Vitra Design Museum, Germany, Design Museum, London, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, USA, Science Museum, London, Crafts Council Collection, London, Design Centre Index, London, Modelo Museum of Science and Industry, Mexico, Victor Papanek Private Collection, USAJohn Makepeace OBE Private Collection, UK, Temple Newsam House, Leeds

Selected Exhibitions, Residencies & Commissions:

Artist in Residence, School for Furniture Craftsmanship, Maine, USA (2019), British Library Interview (2018), Visiting Professor, California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2012), Making Chairs, Craft Study Centre & Ruthin Craft Centre (2013), As William Morris Said, Ruthin Craft Centre (2014), Worcester College, Oxford — Lecture Theatre Seating (2015), Scottish Parliament — Reception Desk & Opening Commission (2003–2004), Collect, Crafts Council, V&A Museum (2004), Science Museum Touring Exhibition — Ergonomic Chairs (1999–2002), Johannesburg World Summit — Sustainable Designs (2002), International Contemporary Furniture Fair, New York (1995), Victoria and Albert Museum — Chairs (1971), Whitechapel Gallery — Chairs 70 (1970) (Full exhibition history available on request)

Andrew Pearson 

My career as a woodcarver and sculptor began with a Batchelor of Arts Degree in 3-Dimensional Design at Wolverhampton which established a solid grounding in the technical skills of drawing and designer-craftsmanship.

My training and growing knowledge advanced an already innate love of the characteristics and possibilities of wood and how natural materials respond to workmanship. I do admire great skill in almost any discipline.

It was at the very start of my wood-sculpting journey at The Green Wood Trust in Shropshire in 1989, when I was a young graduate just trying to get by, that I learned to embrace the joys and the advantages of working ‘green’ or unseasoned timber. When wood is still wet with sap, I feel it sustains more of a sense of energy and truth to its inherent characteristics. I was exploring and developing my own language with wood, different perhaps from that which a conventionally trained woodworker might acquire.

Equally, I find the process of timber drying is captivating; I don’t battle with it, although sometimes the creative process is a struggle. I discover what each piece of wood wants to do, whether it be splitting, bending, shrinking or acquiring a lovely surface colouration. This becomes part of my process.

Following a move to Ludlow in 1992, I began oak carving, inspired by the medieval architecture of the town and in particular by St Laurence’s Church 15th century misericords.

Misericords are the tip-up seats with scenes carved underneath, found in many church and cathedral choir stalls. At that time, I enjoyed a detailed, figurative approach to carving that was led by ‘technique’ and narrative.

After the great fire at Windsor Castle in 1992, I joined a team of master carvers and worked in two rooms during the restoration..

My more recent, sculptural work has evolved with a more abstract approach and the origin is clearly a quiet place: the woods, the trees, ancient sites and my response to my raw materials. The outcome is quiet too and doesn’t shout for space and clamour to be seen.

I believe that trees become ‘charged’ over time by their natural environment. Charged by their location, by their longevity and by natural events. Perhaps even by human behaviour. It is widely understood that trees communicate with each other. 

I aim to preserve this in honour of the great imagination that conceived them as I believe that wood reaches its greatest potential when the will and workmanship of the artist celebrates in harmony with the material.

I am also greatly influenced by traditional craftsmanship, especially by woodturning, which I have done a lot of, and by country furniture and woodland practices, including early Welsh chairs, tables and coffers.

I have exhibited my work widely since 1989, most recently at Canwood Gallery, Hereford, in August 2023 in an exhibition ‘A Quiet Place’ shared with Damien Hirst.

Philippine Sowerby

Philippine makes wood sculpture that is, increasingly, abstract and expressive of emotional and spiritual concerns. 

Following a career path including engineering and supporting people with learning difficulties, she has, in developing craft skills, found fulfilment in releasing the creative potential in this readily-available material.  She seeks to reveal wood's natural structure, texture and colour in balance with her interventions.  With this aim in mind her process and design often evolve as the work progresses. 

For Philippine, sculpture has an equivalence to poetry, expressing ideas and feelings which touch her while leaving enough for the viewer to interpret.  Her current concerns are strength and power against fragility and vulnerability and these dichotomies may be reflected in contrasting physical characteristics.  A hollow work, for example, may appear to be strong but is, in fact, wafer thin with silver-staple repairs acknowledging its fragility. 

Philippine  works in small and large scale, suitable for domestic settings and public places.

Member of The Welsh Group

Member of Sculpture Cymru

Member of The Usk Valley Co-operative

Sally James Thomas

Living, working and engaging with a rural, coastal environment continually influences use of colour, mark and subject-matter.

Through a combination of techniques, strength and presence are explored - contrasted with concepts of the ephemeral and disintegration. Time, space and both natural and human influences are referenced. Natural and synthetic shapes, forms and textures are integrated into the work.

The precarious situations in which nature strives to thrive can be brutal. The threats to the natural world and its intractable beauty are a constant thread in the work. The work sits between exterior perceived reality and the interior world.

Time spent overnight on Skomer island gave a glimpse into the lives of seabirds who seem to live a parallel existence to our own world. Their lives are indicators of environmental crisis, of the Global and the Local. Migratory paths, the crossing of boundaries, imbues the work with concerns with the ‘other’- absence of clearly depicted lives alludes to the disconnect with nature that humans are experiencing, since humans started dividing and creating hierarchies.

Ultimately, the work tries to reconcile the conflict between positive repair and the challenge of ideology shifts associated with ‘living with the wild’.

An experimental approach to printmaking is taken. Printmaking is not used to make multiples, but for the qualities inherent in each technique. The compression element reflects interests in geological and archaeological information. The repeatable nature of print plates often represents that which is static, with painted and drawn marks employed for moments which are more ephemeral and fleeting. 

Plates and blocks are made when a particular mark or shape is required, these are layered, connected and re-used in conjunction with other techniques such as painting, stitch and found objects, creating a tactility that invites engagement.

Sue Hiley Harris

My focus has been on creating three-dimensional sculpture most of which is handwoven and concerned with space, line, interval and texture as well as with the properties of the materials used. These may best be understood in relation to constructed abstract art generally, whether two or three-dimensional, in which material, structure and form are inter-dependent. 

Although much of my work is purely geometric, I am influenced by my surroundings particularly the bare upland landscape of the Brecon Beacons. Since living in a Brecon town house rising at the back straight out of the River Honddu water has been ever-present in my immediate environment. Working with nylon monofilament enables me to weave pieces that disappear in some light and then reappear like moving water. Enamelled copper wire cuts through the 13-piece Hidden Wave without disturbing the whole shape.

Sue Hiley Harris originally pursued fine art at Queensland College of Art in her home town of Brisbane, Australia. Since moving to Britain in 1974 she studied hand-loom weaving in Bradford and science with the Open University. Sue set up her studio in Wales in the 1980s and now lives in Brecon. She has exhibited both internationally and in the United Kingdom and has work in public collections in Wales, England, France and Italy.
Sue is a member of both the Welsh Group and 56 Group Wales as well as being a trustee of the Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers which supports hand-loom weavers in the UK.