• Olivia's marquetry practice is self-taught and free from inherited conventions
• Her first work, a table, carried almost a thousand hand-inlaid willow-leaf pieces
• She creates bespoke commissions across fashion objects, artworks and furniture

Olivia Faire’s marquetry makes wood appear soft and delicate. “Most people cannot believe my work is wood at all, and mistake it for stone or silk,” she says. Olivia works with pale sycamore veneer and quiet colour palettes. She plays with the natural reflectivity of timber to give the surface a silken cast, allowing movement, light and fine texture to emerge from the grain. “The grain is the most important part of the design. It is the instigator of my first lines in charcoal and ink, later digitised and refined for marquetry,” she says. Treating timber as precious, Olivia hand selects each veneer leaf, values discarded remnants and applies dye sparingly. She extends the craft beyond traditional wood veneer to materials as delicate as garlic skins, chasing the levity her butterflies need.