James Morton-Evans

My work combines a love and admiration of antique furniture with a fascination for the structure and architecture of organic morphology.
Each of my pieces is conceived as much as an object of sculpture as it is a functional item of furniture. Some hint at complex structures which lie beneath the surface. Others suggest the prior removal of that surface. The result is an intriguing, even unsettling, balance of the humorous with the sinister.

I was fortunate enough to train and work under Adrian Smith, the experience of which provided me not just with the very best schooling in line and proportion, but also with a detailed knowledge of sound construction technique. During that time it was a privilege to work on some of the finest examples of antique furniture in the country, and it is to those high standards that I aspire in my own work.

For the major part of the production process hand tools are used. Machinery plays its part where appropriate, though it is never allowed to compromise the design. I use only native British hardwoods. My furniture does not seek to hide it's debt to the skills and traditions of the past, and yet it is created to enhance a contemporary living space just as much as it is to sit comfortably alongside its antique predecessors.