In an article for the Financial Times, Trish Lorenz looks at how lacquer and glossy surfaces are making a comeback in high-end contemporary design. Urushi, the Japanese lacquer that Eileen Gray, modernist architect, designer and one of the great lacquer artists embraced and worked with more than 100 years ago once said "To create sensual and humane pieces sometimes only requires "the choice of a beautiful material worked with sincere simplicity". Lorenz discusses with current practitioners such as Dutch designer and artist Aldo Bakker what attracts him to this material.
"I fell in love with urushi on my first encounter with it, and I think I will keep working with it for the rest of my life," says Bakker. "I like the fact that it is 100 per cent natural and ages beautifully, and has a real depth and quality of surface and colour. Even very new and contemporary pieces have a sense of maturity and age to them."
