Wells Mason (born 1968 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American designer and sculptor.
Wells Mason (born 1968 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American designer and sculptor.
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1990. In 1996, he founded his studio, Ironwood Industries, in Austin, Texas. In 1999, he moved his studio to Coupland, Texas. He opened his gallery, Wells Mason Gallery, in 2011 in Austin, Texas. He currently divides his time between Coupland and Austin. [1]
Mason's furniture designs are typically associated with the Studio Furniture movement. Sometimes functional, sometimes not, his furniture combines seemingly disparate materials, like exquisite veneer or recycled wood coupled with forged or salvaged steel. [2]
Mason's sculptures, on the other hand, are generally associated with Postmodernism and, more specifically, the Postminimalist art movement. His sculptures reference the clean lines and simple forms of Minimalism, but with an intellectual component that explores a particular idea or comments on a specific moment in time. [3]
Architects such as I. M. Pei, Philip Johnson, Eric Own Moss, and Samuel Mockbee have influenced Mason's approach to furniture design. [4] He further cites artists Isamu Noguchi and Donald Judd, poets Rumi and Pablo Neruda, and baseball player Yogi Berra as other sources of inspiration. [5]
Mason regularly works on special projects for high-profile clients, such as the Austin Children's Museum, Louis Vuitton, The Wall Street Journal, and Steven Holl Architects. [6] In 2005, his studio was commissioned to make the built-in furniture for Turbulence House in northern New Mexico. [7]
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Although Mason studied English at the University of Texas, that dock chair sparked his career in sculpture and furniture making. He opened Ironwood Industries in Austin in 1996 and moved it out to Coupland at the end of 1999.
In the tradition of minimalists like Donald Judd, Mason keeps the work simple, but Mason steps away from the past through painting the surface and adding geometric space, hidden between his forms.
He says that the work of architects such as IM Pei, Philip Johnson, Eric Owen Moss, and Samuel Mockbee have influenced his approach to furniture design.
I find inspiration everywhere. Artists like Noguchi and Judd. Architects like Mockbee and Pawson. Poets like Rumi and Neruda. Thinkers like Walter Gropius and Buckminster Fuller. And Yogi Berra.
The Umasi bench will be on display this summer in New York City at architecture mega firm Gensler, which opened a location in Austin earlier this year.