Henry Baumann is an artist living in Berlin, who specialises in using materials that seemingly have no value and turning them into something extraordinary. Strawberry boxes and large industrial cable drums are just two of the sources that he has transformed into reclining chairs and tables, recycling these and giving them new life.

For Baumann, taking something apart is as interesting as making something new. Never drawing initial sketches but instead working instinctively, he says: “When I’m trying out these materials and testing them, I often start with an initial idea and it fails. But through this failure something else comes. I’m fascinated by this process.”

His shapes derive from the materials themselves, using their inherent qualities to create a new form. He turns cable drums into a single spiral using just one cut, then gluing and clamping these together into organic shapes; he deconstructs strawberry boxes so that they are just wood panels and nails, shifting these into three- dimensional forms that are reminiscent of ornate North African patterns. For him, refuse is about re-use: “I’m interested in how to find the right purpose and the beauty in discarded matter.”

Baumann has a Bachelor’s degree in Product Design from the Akademie beeldende Kunsten Maastricht, the Netherlands and won his first Recycling Design Award in 2012. He has private clients in Maastricht and commercial clients include Novotel. His work has been exhibited in Vienna, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Watou, Maastricht, Washington, Milan, Berlin, Hamburg, Hasselt, Munich, Eindhoven and Amsterdam, and his objects are in museum collections including Kunstfestival Watou, Belgium and Kunstkraftwerk, Leipzig.

Baumann is available for both private and commercial commissions.

Please contact him at: info@henrybaumann.de