Pierre Renart, from wood to infinity

Intriguing, inviting, his furniture begs to be touched. It unfurls in gentle curves; infinite ripples of the kind that exist in nature, and in the minds of scholars and artists such as him. Furniture-maker and designer Pierre Renart bends wood to his will, bringing magic into homes and interiors.

He traces this desire to create furniture and objects to his earliest childhood; from the age of five, he says. “I started making things out of wood because it’s an easy material to get your hands on when you’re small.” This is especially true for a boy growing up in the Pyrenees, where wood is never in short supply. Pierre Renart made toys, swords and, when he was a little older, a pedal scooter.

This could have been a passing fad, moving on to a different hobby or pastime. Instead, his passion for wood grew stronger. When, after a science baccalauréat, the time came to choose a career, Pierre Renart applied to école Boulle in Paris, one of France’s most renowned art and design colleges. “I chose Boulle because I could learn a skill, in my case woodworking, and because the school encourages students to be creative by teaching how to design and make furniture and shapes.” He began his studies in 2008 and in 2011 graduated top of his class, earning a perfect 20/20 for a chair. Or rather, two chairs.

As part of his coursework, he was given a project to reproduce an existing design. He chose a 1933 Art Deco chair by Raymond Gillet, in wood with an upholstered seat. After making an exact copy, he used it as inspiration for a contemporary version in white Corian and black carbon fibre, which he named Genèse. It was his first creation. The proportions, line and legs of the original are identically rendered but to completely different effect - as though the young furniture-maker had taken a black marker to draw arabesques in the air. “My idea was to use modern materials to make an object that would resemble ink calligraphy, borrowing the elegant, flowing lines of the Art Deco style,” he explains.

Newly graduated, this woodworking maestro was picked up by Maison Parisienne, an itinerant gallery which has exclusive representation of his work - already shown at dozens of exhibitions in France and worldwide.

The second piece that brought Pierre Renart to international collectors’ attention is a console table, inspired by and named after mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius. “One of my friends at école Boulle was a huge fan of the graphic novelist Jean Giraud, whose penname is Mœbius. I wanted to learn more about him and, one thing leading to another, I came across the Möbius strip, which I thought was an amazing shape. Sadly, this friend died shortly after. In his memory, I imagined a piece of furniture like an endless ribbon.”

The Möbius console table looks for all the world as though it were cut from the heart of a tree whose growth defies every rule of nature. It is a work of art. Running the hand over this ribbon of wood, with neither beginning nor end, reveals nothing but perfect smoothness. Pierre Renart uses glulam and the bentwood technique. “It’s a kind of mille-feuille. Multiple one-millimetre thick strips are assembled with glue and positioned so that the joins are invisible. I start with a flat ribbon which I bend into this infinite loop. Every one of my consoles is unique and each one is bent in a different way, according to the type of wood and how willing it is to bend a certain way. The wood decides where its limits are.”

From his workshop in the Blois area, France, Pierre Renart’s creative process is more akin to that of a sculptor than a furniture-maker. Rather than sketch his designs, he makes a 1:10 scale model. “I use thin sheets of wood which I fashion into curves and shapes until I find an aesthetic I like, incorporating technical constraints into the piece as I work. If the model is stable, resistant and properly balanced, even ten times larger the full-size piece will be, too. There will be no unwelcome surprises. It’s my way of creating and also a means of materialising the project for the client.”

What would be his ultimate piece of furniture? “I would love to create a table with no legs. One that would hang from the ceiling or fix to a wall, like a sculpture. Just the top floating in mid-air, with people seated all around. That would be my dream.”

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