David Colwell

29 June to 11 September 2010

An exhibition in partnership with Ruthin Craft Centre

David Colwell lives and works in mid Wales. He trained as an furniture designer both at the Kingston School of Art and the Royal College of Art, maintaining a strong interest in industrial design as well, for example during the time of his design practice in London between 1969-79. He has brought a lifelong passion for sustainability to bear on his furniture designs and methods of manufacture. His designs use steam-bent, unseasoned ash a technique that reduces the need for jointing, allows the furniture to be used as a flexible structure and reduces wastage. The outcome is useful furniture for the home, office or public building that is elegant, distinctive and unobtrusively ahead of its time. This new exhibition of his work, co-curated with the Ruthin Craft Centre, Denbighshire focuses both on Colwell's long and influential career as well as new work that demonstrates his continuing search for innovative methods of production allied to expressive design to achieve what Colwell calls 'the unavoidable aesthetic of sustainablility'. He has recently been awarded a prestigious Creative Wales award from the Arts Council of Wales