Wycliffe Stutchbury's Timber Landscapes: From Furniture to Architectural Abstraction

Wycliffe Stutchbury creates intricate abstract landscapes using thousands of hand-cut wooden shingles from salvaged timber. His practice transforms materials like bog oak, holly, and ash into sculptural reliefs that evoke geological formations. Trained under master furniture designer Rod Wales, Stutchbury spent twenty-five years as a furniture maker before shifting to abstract work after graduating in 3D craft from the University of Brighton. His method involves gathering wood from single locations, preserving weathering marks from rain, sun, and time. A pivotal moment came when he salvaged discarded battens from a neighbor's re-roofing project, leading to his signature shingle technique. Stutchbury describes his role as an editor collaborating with nature rather than imposing vision, allowing grain direction and tonal contrasts to guide compositions. His architectural project "The Craig" reimagined a seventeenth-century stone barn in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire with site-specific shingle cladding following the building's contours. Commissions include a coastal house in Maine where he plans to apply his approach using local timber. Each work is titled after its timber's source location, emphasizing provenance as structural principle. The shingle arrangements create surfaces that resemble topography through accumulation of small, varied units, with light and shadow animating the compositions daily.