Michael Fogg

Michael Fogg

Michael Fogg’s faux bois furniture is inspired by the tree forms found in the Northeastern United States, as well as traditional French Rocaille and Southwestern Trabajo Rustico. Weathered branches, stumps, and old boards are all treated as sculptural subjects, their seeming fragility contradicted by a stone-like density.

Cement mixes are applied to a steel framework, and then sculpted by hand to resemble natural wood. These works are not molded or cast! These are unique works of art, made using simple tools. Only a handful of artists continue to practice this esoteric art form.

“There were designs I wanted to create that were impossible or impractical to fabricate using real wood, not because real wood was unsatisfying as a material. In the end I found that the process of recreating real wood gave me an appreciation of wood itself as an art object: trees as massive sculptures, rotten boards as textural treasures. There is an aleatoric quality in the growth of trees which is also governed by certain rules- I find this tension to be particularly beautiful.”