When one strikes up a conversation about the preservation of culture and tradition within the realm of fashion and traditional arts and crafts, it would be remiss to not mention the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize — a hallmark initiative that is both an important endeavour for the fashion world and Loewe. Currently helmed by creative director Jonathan Anderson, the Spanish luxury label was first established in 1846 as a group of leather artisans, and it continues to place an emphasis on expert craftsmanship and design.
In 2016, Anderson developed the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize as a way to celebrate excellence and innovation in modern craft. Quickly becoming one of the most highly anticipated prizes each year, the sixth edition takes place in 2023, the names of the 30 finalists now released. Here, we sit down with Liam Lee, one of the finalists from this year’s edition, to learn more about his craft, surrealist approach to biophillia, and where the exploration of form and material will take him in the future.
Hi Liam! What led you to art? Were you always inclined to visuals or aesthetics from young or did a particular work or experience lead you to it?
Although I didn’t study art or design as an undergraduate, I’ve always loved working with my hands — painting, drawing, sculpting, etc. A lot of my design education came from working in various capacities at design firms in New York.
What about the green and lilac felted merino wool chair that was selected as the finalist for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2023? What is the story behind this piece?
For the most part, my furniture doesn’t reference specific plants or fungi, but instead relies on an imagined taxonomy. I try to sculpt forms that are slightly ambiguous, that bring to mind elements in nature but are indistinct enough to allow people to recognise different things in them.
Any specific reason why you like to work with felt as a medium?
I was really drawn to working with wool fibre largely out of convenience — you don’t need a ton of equipment to work with the material, so I began by working at my dining table on my textiles. I’m still very much learning about the material as I work and am constantly fascinated by its malleability and its capacity to be both rigid and supple.
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Where does the material for your felt come from?
The merino wool fibres come from North Carolina! For my textile work, I source woven mohair panels from Spain and Ireland.
What inspires your work? It’s clearly topographic and biophilic, but also very surreal and otherworldly — its evocative of nature and uses natural materials, but does not appear in a size or shape most have seen before.
While I draw a lot of inspiration from the natural world, my work is more of a loosely mimetic, slightly abstracted or simplified version of things that I see and respond to in nature. I think this helps guide each piece to a place that provokes a feeling of semi-recognition. I enjoy exploring these slippages in meaning and legibility in my work, and one way of doing so has been through playing with scale, collapsing various elements on top of one another.
How then do you usually transpose those ideas into sculptures and furniture? Is the element of utility still a part of your creative process?
The functional aspect of my work is still important on some level in that the chairs can support the weight of a sitting human and are legible as chairs. That said, what pushes me to continue my work is in finding new ways to work with the material and experiment with my process.
Something else that stands out from your works are your generous use of vibrant colours. How do you choose the colours and how do you mix them into your materials?
The way I approach colour is fairly simple and intuitive — if it makes sense to me or looks interesting, or if I simply like it, I’ll use that colour combination. I use acid dyes, which work on natural fibres like wool and silk, and mix various colours, and sometimes overdye the wool until I get a colour I want.
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What kind of emotions or thoughts do you hope to convey to viewers with your sculptures?
In my approach to object design, I attempt to imbue each object with formal qualities that produce an immediate, primal response in the viewer or user. It’s an attempt to provoke a sense-memory or uncanny feeling of both recognition and foreignness in the work I create.
If you had the choice to work with any another textile or medium without any of the usual physical limitations, what would you choose?
I would love to work in marble and glass!
Last but not least, what are you working on next?
I have two upcoming solo shows this summer — one at Patrick Parrish Gallery in New York, and one at the Ogunquit Museum in Maine.
Once you’re done with this story, click here to catch up with our April 2023 issue.
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