When wood becomes fluid
- Kino creates airy, fluid forms and innovative furniture using a vacuum press
- He seeks to shape lengths of wood into continuous undulating forms
- His pieces feature in Canadian embassies around the world
Kino Guérin has been fascinated with making things since childhood, when he fashioned bows and arrows from wood gathered in his backyard and roamed the woodlands of Saguenay, Québec. “From an early age, I was attracted to the material,” he says. Kino’s colour blindness drew him to work with sculptural, 3D forms made from wood. During his cabinetmaking degree at Cégep du Vieux Montréal, he began experimenting with more artful objects, using a vacuum-press lamination process to create pliable ribbons of wood for tables, shelves and other pieces of furniture. Kino has since refined and mastered this technique, moulding and shaping continuous stretches of wood into functional objects characterised by intricate knots and sinuous curves. His work is supported by the Conseil des Métiers d'Art du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Interview
- Why are fairs and shows important to you and your business?
- Participating in design shows such as New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair has accelerated my career. I think it is important to show your pieces in real life, not just in photos. A decade later, the relationships I have built at those events, with architects, designers and owners of boutique shops, are still translating into sales.
- How has being colour blind affected your work?
- The world is crazy about colour. When you are colour blind, you have a heightened sensitivity to lines, curves and design instead. I suppose that is why I am always striving to make new geometries out of a continuous, single form.
- What do you love most about your craft?
- I love working with a living material that carries its own story and its own history. You can look at a piece of wood and know where and under which conditions it grew. That is amazing.
- Where can your furniture be found?
- I have pieces in Canadian embassies around the world, from London and Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia. My work also appears in the decorative arts and design collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Kino Guérin is an expert artisan: he began his career in 1995
Where
Kino Guérin
