Incollect Magazine Issue 7

Incollect Magazine 121 Christopher Norman is a Los Angeles-based artist who creates formal objects for living. His large-scale wooden artworks begin first as gestural drawings, for spontaneity and human touch, and are critical to his design practice. “Having worked and made things with my hands my whole life, I like to forego computers in the design process and instead deploy pre-CNC industrial milling machines. With these devices, I can explore the connections between the body, plant-based materials, and early industrial tools.” He also likes to let the material dictate the direction of a design. “Each sculptural element is a snapshot of the tree it came from,” he says, the artist crafting designs from single segments of wood derived from wild-foraged or fallen trees (rather than commercially treated timbers) weighing as much as 3,000 pounds. “Rather than building forms, as one might in architecture or additive manufacture, I find form in subtraction, cutting away matter to reveal a final shape which is discovered through the process.” The cast-off wood goes to urban farmers located throughout LA. Research is very much at the core of his practice which often references fundamental and enduring forms that humans constantly return to. “In addition to being trained as an architect, I have been a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome, where I investigated ancient homes. I seek out commonalities in design history, domestic objects of antiquity as well as contemporary industrial and mass- produced elements, leveraging universal shapes to render objects at once surprising and familiar.” Christopher Norman Projects Untitled (bench) 2021. Douglas fir, linseed. Originally made as a 13’ long version for a project in New Orleans, this can be made to order in custom sizes. Untitled (sketch 28) 2022. Douglas fir, linseed, at 95 inches tall, this standing form has presence as well as grace. A 42” diameter partial circle has been carved from the block. In what the artist refers to as an “incomplete form,” the circular void lends an air of mystery, hinting at another alternate dimension.