No two pieces of ancient wood are the same and this is what shapes Nic Webb’s work. A sketch might be the starting point, but it’s rarely adhered to. “It’s about the following of lines, the following of grain, responding to the character in the wood,” he explains. Nic works with wood that is centuries old, making pieces that sit at the intersection of art, craft, interiors and exteriors. Elm burls are a favourite and precious material, unique to the local landscape. Nic’s studio is based in East Sussex, where the last diseased elms are slowly being felled and local tree surgeons let him know when the burls become available. These enormous, calloused knots, caused by damaged areas of growth, are increasingly rare.
His completed works celebrate the form, texture and colour of wood that has been chiselled, chainsawed, hollowed out, burned, sandblasted and polished, often over several years. “Every time we touch the raw material, we’re imposing ourselves,” he says. “But it’s about trying to find the balance
within the wood and understand our own aesthetic from the exploration.”
The creative dialogue between Nic and the wood is a conversation that involves mistakes, accidents and sometimes undoing what he started. Accepting the ‘broken’ elements is an important part of the creative process – it gives Nic pause to reflect and evaluate the work and recognise when it has reached its conclusion.
Experimenting and exploring new materials, tools and methods is fundamental to how Nic’s practice has evolved over the past 20 years. Although he originally studied painting at the University of Brighton, his career path took him from 2D work through a stint of set building, which taught him about using different materials and whatever tools it takes to solve creative problems. While trying out different techniques with his cherished set of antique chisels, he built a reputation for spoon carving, which led him to explore larger and larger wooden forms.
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Burning his work was initially another experiment, a practical solution. “I started setting fire to works around 2009, because it clears all the nuisance marks of making, and actually gives you the fullest vocabulary of wood surface,” he says. “You’ve got the carbon and the black, and that beautiful sort of framing contrast against polished or blonde wood.” Fire is now an essential part of his toolkit. “It chases away what may have been a contrived line of your own hands and it returns it back to the organic. So you’re almost inviting nature back in and asking what it might like to do now.”
It’s a tense relationship that plays with the old saying that fire is a good servant, but a cruel master. “We’ve learned a lot about how we can use it and manage it,” he says “It’s terrifying to most wood people, because you’re pushing the material so it’s going to crack and split and dry quickly, warp and twist and lose bits. But that’s the very brand identity of what we do – forcing those accidents and seeing that edge just before loss.”
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With each curious, aesthetic adventure, Nic explores the natural form of the material, manipulating it and guiding it to a conclusion. He works collaboratively, but with a small team that scales up or down, according to the number of commissions. It’s really important for him to keep his own hands on the work.
Each piece carries the marks of the life and death of the tree, and the hands, tools, elements and landscape that have shaped it and renewed it. Nic is often considered to be a maker on the edge of convention, but he sees himself as a storyteller and craftsman, belonging firmly to the ancient tradition of creating objects as a legacy for future generations that speak to us of frailty, endurance and delicate beauty.
Find out more about Nic Webb’s work at nicwebb.com
Nic is represented by the Sarah Myerscough Gallery (sarahmyerscough.com) in London and is working towards an exhibition there in autumn 2028. His piece Thargg is destined for this show.
