Jae Hyo Lee has been getting a lot of buzz lately, and it’s easy to see why. We are digging the South Korean artist’s most recent project, in which he uses pine logs to create curvy, textured, and modern forms that straddle the line between sculpture and furniture.

Lee’s other efforts can be seen in galleries and installations all over the world. Below is his contribution to the Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan.

His explorations of texture are riveting, the surface of this piece is made from bent and sanded nails.

See more of Jae Hyo Lee’s artwork here.

I had an amazing opportunity to meet architect, artist, designer Eddie Sykes. Correction, this was the third time I have met him. Crazy thing, when we first moved to Los Angeles in 2005, we visited the studios of Eddie Sykes and were totally blown away by his work. At the time, he was building a large scale, translucent facade for a hotel in New York. Five years passed and I found myself at his studio for other tangential reasons, this was meeting #3. Eddie met us outside, we both looked at each other, and it was like deja vu from our encounter years earlier.

As we were talking casually, Eddie’s sculptures were dangerously hung in his Frogtown studio. His work very delicate, industrial, raw, refined, luxury, rudimentary… a balance of opposites is very present in his work. Especially the Yakuza Lou–a kinetic sculpture, but also a working chandelier. Each one meticulously handcrafted, requiring up to 4 months to complete a single piece.

The Yakuza Lou chandelier came as a more affordable and production friendly solution to the large scale Yakuza Lou sculpture exhibited at M&A in Silverlake in 2009. That piece was an outdoor sculpture that opened and closed revealing metal and greenery triggered by motion sensor placed in the outdoor gallery. This was meeting #2 with Eddie… well, not Eddie himself but his work.

Re-encounters like this are special. I love how Los Angeles can do that. Even though sprawling, Los Angeles is intimate enough that one can rediscover a person, place, or feeling spontaneously.

More on Yakuza Lou here.
Also, a great interview with Eddie Sykes on the Modernica blog.