With a background in Fine Art Christine Meyer-Eaglestone MA discovered marquetry while studying cabinet-making and realised its potential as a contemporary visual medium. Developing her own technique, a Crafts Council Setting-Up Grant in 2001 enabled her to set up a workshop(Leeds). Since then she has been creating unique pieces, among them wall-based art works and functional items with a marquetry surface – ‘functional works of art’. She exhibits regularly and has worked in partnership with interior designers both on a domestic and corporate level. CME always cuts veneers by hand, regardless of scale, allowing her to let each design evolve in the cutting process while instinctively responding to a multitude of colours and grains. Her combinations of conventional and ‘reconstructed’ veneers (made in Italy by laminating thin rotary cut sheets of various dyed woods) allow for subtle and sophisticated or bold and dramatic colour schemes. Colour is expressed through dynamic geometric composition, as structure is central to her work. Designs range from minimal to complex, often exploring the dialogue between hard-edged geometry and organic pattern. Drawing inspiration from architecture as well as music she is also influenced by an underlying appreciation of early 20th Century Art such as Cubism, Constructivism and the Bauhaus and has a deep respect for Japanese design. Vital considerations in her designs are balance and rhythm: ‘Working as fast as the medium allows, I aim to convey a sense of tension and vitality or one of order, simplification and elegance by manipulating line, edge, colour and texture’. Precision and craftsmanship are critical to her practice and this is never compromised by the apparent spontaneity of her designs. The one-off works displayed are there to illustrate variety and some may no longer be available. Please contact the artist for further information.