The Craft in America Center featured a retrospective of recent work by acclaimed furniture artist John Cederquist, whose masterful trompe l’oeil inlay work is unrivaled in its visual and intellectual complexity. Cederquist’s sculptural forms are created to blur the boundaries between reality and illusion. Collapsing dimensionality through a challenging process that entails translating objects into two-dimensions, his sculptures self-reflect on the significance of furniture and meaning of art.
Cederquist studied art and craft at California State University at Long Beach and went on to teach design at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo in 1976. Since the late 1970s, Cederquist has explored the relationship between perspective drawings and fully constructed finished works. His bewildering and beguiling works of depth deception call into question notions of process, craftsmanship and perception. Cederquist has pushed the potential of furniture through his visionary and incomparable approach. The artist has exhibited widely in prestigious museums and galleries and his work can be found in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among others.
Among the vast inspirations that drive Cederquist in his practice, his passions for historic stylistic periods, Japanese wood block prints and mid-twentieth century cartoons have filtered through his work over the years. The imprint of our increasingly image-laden world is a focal interest to Cederquist, particularly as images proliferate via channels of new media technology and people experience the world through snapshots and Instagram as a norm.
Zen and the Art of Painting with Wood (Mickey’s Mandalas series), 2010Phillips or Standard? (Mickey’s Mandalas series), 2010Just Plane Waves (Mickey’s Mandalas series), 2010Ropeanesque, 2010-2012Indecision of Upholstery, 2010-2012Indecision of Upholstery (detail)Indecision of Upholstery (detail)Indecision of Upholstery (detail)Indecision of Upholstery (detail)Special Delivery from Japan (This is Not Lunch tray series), 2006-2007Special Delivery from Japan (This is Not Lunch tray series), 2006-2007Taste of Fish, Sweet Smell of Blossom (This is Not Lunch tray series), 2006-2007Wave Machine, (This is Not Lunch tray series), 2006-2007Wave Machine, (This is Not Lunch tray series), 2006-2007Measure Once, Cut Twice (Mickey’s Mandalas series), 2010. With a great sense of humor matched by impeccable craftsmanship, Cederquist is never one to miss a good visual pun or joke. In these more recent pieces, he often riffs on craft mottos and sayings by giving them physical form. The chatoyance of specifically selected woods that Cederquist bleaches and dyes appear like entirely different materials, such as, silk, steel and water, which adds to the effect of his optical illusions.Measure Twice, Cut Once (Mickey’s Mandalas series), 2010. In this series of flat sculptures inspired by the cosmic mandala diagram, Cederquist moves away from furniture to play with the idea of art that is intended for walls. In his “Mickey Mandalas,” the formal structure is an assemblage of wooden planks in a truss-like formation that is reminiscent of Japanese or Craftsman style architecture. The iconic black arm and flawless white glove of America’s most beloved mouse repeatedly pops through the planks to execute various craft process in a clockwise formation. Poking self-deprecating fun at the cartoonish nature of the handmade, these pieces allude to the issue of skills that are no longer valued or understood and perhaps as outmoded as American illustrated characters from a bygone era.
