Tideline, 2023

Hakan Trulsson  

A carved sculpture in solid maple, standing on a round slate base. Roughly a month of carving from first cut to final polish.

The outer form is a pair of twisting ribbons that rise, cross, and fold back on themselves, hollowed so the piece reads differently from every angle — closed and vessel-like from one side, wide open from another. Running the full length of the outer edge is a seam of oxidised copper: real copper, allowed to develop its own blue-green patina, then set flush into the maple and polished. The colour is not paint or dye. It shifts from deep teal to pale sea-green along the length of the seam, and no two areas are the same.

Suspended inside the opening is a free-standing helix. It is carved from the same block as the body and remains continuous with it. Work like this can only be done from the inside out, with the tool reaching in through a gap barely wider than the blade, and every cut is final; there is no way to add wood back. The result is a length of maple that appears to hang in mid-air, twisting freely between two walls it has never been separated from. At its midpoint sits a copper sphere with the same patina as the seam — the still point at the centre of all the movement.

The maple is finished to a high gloss that brings up the pale honey of the grain. 

One of a kind. Signed by the maker.