Bench in Steam Bent White Oak | Matthias Pliessnig

Nine Questions with Matthias Pliessnig
The word “Amada” in Spanish is a term of endearment between lovers suggesting intimacy and physical closeness. The two are intertwined, familiar with the curves and bends of each other, yet discovering them over and over.

Amada is also the name of furniture designer Matthias Pliessnig’s signature piece, a 27-foot-long bench made of strips of bent white oak. Meticulously assembled by employing a kind of labor-intensive coopering that involves steam bending thin strips of wood, the piece reflects Pliessnig’s attention to form, function and physics. He is an artist whose art is informed by a boyhood imagination that envisioned the construction of boats and airplanes. Fast-forward to art school, where that drive met a desire not to just dictate the aesthetic of a piece but to show the artistry of how it actually came to take on that form in the first place.

“My first influence is process,” he explains. “Then human interaction and space interaction. The outcomes are forms that meander through space, keeping in mind aerodynamics and hydrodynamics.”

The peaks and valleys of Amada wrap around the body with conspicuous familiarity, yet never quite give up the mystery of how the experience between object and individual will unfold. The bench, along with seven other pieces, is now part of an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery of American Art, where Pliessnig is among just four artists featured in its annual Renwick Craft Invitational. Supplementing his contributions to the show are printed computer models of additional work as well as a “hands on” piece—a knotted ball of steam-bent wood that the public can touch. “The narrative,” he says, “represents my general body of work.”

In high school, Pliessnig’s art teacher took note of his simultaneous efforts to create a design through the very process of constructing a piece. He suggested art school and after a brief stint at the Kansas City Art Institute, Pliessnig, now 32, enrolled in a furniture design program at the Rhode Island School of Design, which he followed up with an MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He began with metal sculpture and then moved on to wood when a teacher introduced him to coopering, or the process of bending wood, such as done with barrel or cask making.