Matthew Paré
Steel plate
Burr: 52cm x 46.5cm
Burr thickness: 5.5cm
Oak chocolate boxes entitled ‘Oak four ways, chocolate always’
Material: English oak, pippy, quarter sawn, brown, bog. metlon wool
Item description: Lidded boxes with chip carved bog oak handle. Limited edition of 19 boxes with one further pure bog oak box which is being offered as a giveaway item. I made a chocolate box for home several years ago with a few off-cuts from a project and enjoy the ritual of opening the box and sharing chocolate over a game, a movie or box-set binge. I subsequently made them as gifts and now as a limited run of 19 boxes for the gallery. All made from solid English oak in various forms, each box is unique and some slightly different sizes as I managed to get as many boxes as possible from three boards of quarter sawn oak, navigating the knots, each box takes a standard bar size.
Local chocolate shop, Rococo chocolates have kindly supplied a free ‘starter bar’ for each box.
The third piece in my collaboration with metal worker James Morris. The exceptional English elm was cut into three generous slices with each one maintaining impressive figure and pattern. The folded steel base is takes inspiration from microscopic images of seed pods in a geometric form.