Instagram story viewer> @alex_macdougall> Posts

Alex Macdougall

@alex_macdougall

986

followers

1325

following

Artist / Furniture maker @paradiseworks_
Drumset @mandyindiana
e ~ [email protected]

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

A couple of sculptures of mine are in two exhibition openings this week:
•
𝕊𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕪 𝔸𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕄𝕖𝕤𝕤 — opening Thursday June 16th, 6-9 @paradiseworks_ — alongside @isaacbjordan @fleuryearsley @gwensenhui @maisieapritchard @lauriedriver99 @emmaillingworth_ @caincasson @lydia.marshallllllllllll and @jessicabennett_art. This was being put up yesterday and it looks very good.
•
𝕄𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕆𝕡𝕖𝕟 𝕒𝕥 ℍ𝕆𝕄𝔼 — Open to the public Sat June 20th to Sun Sept 6th — alongside me old pal @studio_critical @christathinks @caincasson @fleuryearsley @lauriedriver99 @reeces.peeces__ and many others.
•
Excited and bewildered. Both are free. See posters for full details. ⍤ by @alex_macdougall

35

0

4 months ago

𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 (𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹)
•
Some detail shots here of the recent picture frame commission, flying solo without its print.
•
Risky business scorching slender timbers such as these, but it worked by bending it back and to with the heat of the blowtorch. Fire melts glue, so the frame had to be assembled after it was scorched. This had an added bonus of leaving the protruding double-dowel joints light in tone, in contrast to the blackened timbers, highlighting the joins as a feature of the frame’s construction.
•
Really like how the carved details ended up looking — the sharp blade cutting through the charcoal layer, and into fresh timber beneath.
•••••
Scorched oak
1370 x 820 x 40 mm by @alex_macdougall

35

3

4 months ago

𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲
•
Made a frame for a large print, brought back from China by a close mate of mine. It is made of delicate rice paper, printed by pressing it onto a huge, carved, inked-up stone slab (slide 3). The characters carved into the stone surface translate to something like the following:
•
𝘋𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘰𝘰; 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴, 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘋𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳.
•
Thanks @framingmanchester for handling the float mounting process — I could not have done this alone in a dusty workshop, I would have died of stress ⍩ ⍩ ⍩
•
Building the frame was pretty tricky but also interesting. More on that with more pics next week for those curious.
•••••
Scorched oak
1370 x 820 x 40 mm by @alex_macdougall

46

9

4 months ago

𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗽𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 (𝗧𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭)
•
I was thinking about Jung’s idea of the “tension of the opposites”, and how holding this tension of contradiction can create a sort of dynamic energy, that can give rise to something new.
•
He used it in reference to inner psychic tensions. But I think something like that is going on with this as an external form. A curved, rugged, ‘natural’ form; held inside a rigidity of flatness, straight lines, and functional mortises.
• • • • • by @alex_macdougall

49

9

10 months ago

𝗧𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲
•
Commissioned table base for an existing table top, finished and installed last week. Dismantled, it shows its composition: two sculpted slabs, two tenoned braces, eight wedges.
•
Carving 4” seasoned oak is brutal on the hands! — razor sharp tools are a must. I was amazed at how rigid the structure became once the wedges were hammered in from the sides. The power of a simple sloped bit of wood. This joinery allows it to be packed down if needed.
•
V fun photographing this — each sculpture framing the other through a carved aperture. See a previous post for some of the influences if interested. I’ll share some other more sculptural/detail shots soon, and then I’ll pipe right down about it.
•
Thanks for taking a peek ﾂ
• • •
Oak
1500 x 800 x 720 mm (assembled) by @alex_macdougall

69

23

10 months ago

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀
•
I’ll be posting a newly finished piece this week. Just sharing here some of what went into it - the thinking, noticing, collecting, experimenting - which it seems often goes on years before the physical part, the making.
•
It’s been an eye-opener reflecting on the number / variety of ingredients that have gone into the mixer with this piece, and how widely distributed these influences have been geographically. You encounter and collect things that you feel are somehow significant, or might be useful to you later, but not yet knowing why.
•
I’ll share what all this amounted to later in the week for those interested. Thanks ﾂ
• • •
𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀:
1. Finding cutouts
2-5. Visualising options
6. 4” oak, locally sourced, from James at @wildwoodtimbermerchants
7. Visualising at scale
[𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀:]
8. Hepworth - ‘Four Square’, St. Ives
9. Hepworth museum, Wakefield
10. Hepworth, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
11. Eduardo Chillida museum, San Sebastián
12. Plinth joinery detail, Noguchi Museum, NYC
13. Isamu Noguchi drawings
14. Fossilised coral @stonesciencemuseum , Anglesey
15. Sand patterns, Pembrokeshire
16. Inner-arch carving detail, Hereford Cathedral
• • • • • by @alex_macdougall

50

5

10 months ago

𝘋𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵 (2025)
•
Scorched oak, oak insides, drill bit, list, gicleé photographic prints. by @alex_macdougall

55

9

a year ago

〰️ Wavy Wooden Bathroom Interior 〰️
•
A snapshot of a beautifully crafted bathroom designed in collaboration with and handmade by @alex_macdougall as part of an ongoing renovation and retrofit project.
•
The high-level, clerestory windows allow borrowed light from the sunny south into the darker middle of the house. Faceted timber ’studs’ accentuate the natural grain patterns of the beautiful ash, inspired by the 'endless columns' of Romanian sculptor Brâncuși. The door frame reinterprets traditional architraves into something more lively, with a lime green pocket door making the most of a small space and providing some unexpected brightness 🟢. It brings together crafted elements with previously used items - the bathroom cabinet re-uses a sink won at eBay for £1!
•
We wanted to create a space that felt like an inspiring place to start the day 🚿 with a charm of its own.
•••
@editionalstudio
@alex_macdougall
#design #architecture #sculpture by @alex_macdougall

330

26

2 years ago

• M5 (Textured Panel) •
•
This was hanging up at @paradiseworks_ open studios a few weeks ago and it started up some discussion. The idea of the piece was to present a surface that is rough and chaotic.
•
In making - certainly in commercial manufacturing - there is a drive towards smoothness, neatness, repeatability, and ‘perfection’. I’ve got a growing suspicion of this modern proclivity... that it is somehow oppressive to our soul and our aliveness.
•
There is a part of our mind that I think needs to engage with the rich, diverse, idiosyncratic nature of the world in order for it to feel alive, or at the least, for us to feel okay. Today this side of us is constantly at risk of being choked, made sterile by standardisation and meaninglessness around us. It’s that feeling you get when you’re walking through the Arndale, or any other shopping centre.
•
That is why making or engaging with art & music is so important - they present opportunities to nurture that part of us that is at risk. There are subtle powers that lurk, expressed in the forms around us, which seek to stamp out our vital qualities in order to render us numb and passive.
•••
Ebonised oak
560 x 465 x 5mm
•••
#sculpture #consumerism #passivity #manufacturing #artattack #paradiseworks by @alex_macdougall

70

6

2 years ago

˚ M4˚
•
I’ve been trying to shake free from my perfectionistic tendencies in the workshop, in favour of exploring irregularity and organicness of form. A lot about furniture making compels the practitioner towards regularity; in the form of squareness, flatness, straightness, smoothness, etc. One reason for this is practical: for example, joining two pieces of wood together successfully is vastly more simple if these characteristics of regularity are maintained.
•
As well as this, the tools that we keep in our workshops, and use on a daily basis, are designed to have regularity and consistency as their consequence: the 90˚ square, the plane, the spirit level, the Forstner bit for perfect circular holes — even the humble ruler!
•
But I think it’s good to be suspicious of our tools, and our assumptions on how to work. It’s good to remember that our tools are not only powerful instruments of utility, but also heavy constraints, or limits, on how we think and what we create.
•
Everything about this mobile has turned out somewhat irregular. The cutouts are oddly shaped, the angles of the corners are acute or obtuse. The crosspiece is made of a cast-off, jaggedy piece of sycamore, the faces of the panels are left rough from the bandsaw. The longer sides of the panels were once parallel, but they are now warped after the wood dried out — meaning there isn’t really a fully flat, smooth, 90 degree, or straight feature to this piece.
•
650 x 320 x 140 mm
Ebonised oak, sycamore, thread.
•••
#design #sculpture #mobile #furnituredesign #architecture by @alex_macdougall

54

0

2 years ago

Face 1
•
Douglas fir, 500 x 120 x 100mm
•••
#sculpture #experiment #face #wooden by @alex_macdougall

40

2

3 years ago

Some final detail pics of the cab. Shimmering sycamore, watercolour ash, carved dark wenge handles.
•••
#furnituredesign #furnituremaking #design #architecture #cabinetmaker #bathroomcabinet #vanitycabinet #woodwork #craft #bespokefurniture #furniture #koppundkluepfel #furnituredetails by @alex_macdougall

49

6

3 years ago