As part of their exhibit Material Poetry, Brooklyn’s Causey Contemporary will have Joseph Walsh’s “Enginum Bed” on display and available for purchase. The show will run from October 8th to November 18th, 2010 and will feature some of the most creative new wave designs from Ireland with works by Liam Flynn, Joe Hogan, and Frances Lambe. While very contemporary, these works draw on a rich tradition of Irish architecture. Simple materials such as porcelain and oak give these pieces a modern appeal without abandoning the majestic beauty that has always defined Irish art. Each piece seems to suggest the refinement of a rustic origin. The exhibit is only the first of many to follow in the next three years as part of a collaboration between the American Irish Historical Society and Causey Contemporary.

Walsh’s bed, constructed in 2010, uses an olive ash frame which has been finished in white oil. Draped overhead is a white silk canopy that compliments the bed’s ephemeral quality. The bed was designed in Walsh’s studio near Kinsale in Cork County, Ireland, and playfully exhibits the artist’s sense of movement and form. It inspires a sense of fluidity and softness which is emphasized by the delicate fabric that completes it. Functional yet artful, this piece may best represent Walsh’s experimental tradition. Since starting his furniture studio in 1998, Walsh has expanded on the woodworking techniques he learned as a child from his grandfather. His work reflects the detail and imagination to which he might have first been introduced by intricate marquetry, a technique used by his grandfather where varying shades of wood are used to produce an image on a wooden veneer.

Joseph Walsh’s “Enginum Bed” is priced at $80,789.28.

~Affluent Page

Causey Contemporary

Joseph Walsh Studio

Photography is courtesy of Andrew Bradley.