«As a kid, I was into animatronics and wooden things» recalls Bethan Laura Wood

A Mexico residency for British designer Bethan Laura Wood: «It’s brutalist architecture, but it also has a big conversation with the pre-Hispanic architectural detailing»

Jurgen Bey and Martino Gamper as mentors

«I had a design technology teacher called Mr Roberts, and he was letting me come to the workshop after hours or to the after-school club that was meant to be for only the older children. It let me learn how to do different techniques, I did aluminum sand casting. I was into animatronics and wooden mechanical things.

And then, after my foundation year, I had as tutor Michelle, who pushed me to go for design, and it was helpful because at the time, I was still unsure which discipline I wanted to go for because I loved getting to do everything. Then, to oversee my masters, I had Jurgen Bey and Martino Gamper as teachers. Having these two talented designers as my mentors influenced the direction of my work». Bethan Laura Wood holds a Master of Arts in Design Products from the Royal College of Art.

Bethan Laura Wood: I make work in response to places that I visit

Residencies and location-based are a key element in Bethan Laura Wood’s design process and her work is often responsive to her location and it is realized in collaboration with local manufacturers: 

«I’ve always used tools from my direct environments to create work. A lot of the works I did during my time at the Royal college of art were directly about London, I was about making what was directly inspired by your location.

Bethan Laura Wood in Mexico City

When I was invited to go to Mexico in 2013 and make work about a Mexico City and the idea of global local I made the crisscross collection, I have continued making work influenced by the trip, in 2023 I released the new carpets for cc-tapis based on my ongoing interest in the new Basilica of the Lady of Guadeloupe.

Before covid pandemic, I was lucky to have the opportunity to travel in Asia so some of these  influences can be seen in the aesthetics of my solo show Ornate. I often make work in response to locations and places that I’ve visited. I usually like to try where possible to work directly with artisans or people from those places to create a conversation or dialogue».

The Guadalupe collection: soft and rough

For the Italian rug maker brand cc-tapis, Bethan Laura Wood designed Guadalupe, carpets born from her archive of ‘public patterns’ collected during her travels. She explains: «The Guadalupe collection comes from an ongoing obsession with the New Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a church in Mexico City.

It’s a kind of brutalist architecture, but it also has a big conversation with the pre-hispanic architectural detailing and aesthetics. I’ve started making works that explore the stained-glass windows, then I’ve made the cc-tapis doing a couple of different designs that change the intensity of color and the placement of colors, so that you see the pattern in different ways. Some of the first textiles that I came across when I traveled to Mexico City, have a rainbow palette that I previously had only experienced being used for children’s spaces.

Bethan Laura Wood: strong colors in a complexity

in Mexico, it’s not necessarily only connected only to children and that was one of the first times that I started to experience a way to work with strong colors in a complexity that had a maturity that could be more universal than what I have experienced in Europe.

So this carpet is a nod to these textiles: we worked on creating a knotting structure that had a roughness to it that had this good feeling that you get from that kind of very brutalist concrete texture. I love that mix between the kind of soft silk, which represents the kind of glass that elements to building and the feeling of the rough».

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Bethan Laura Wood creates imaginative spaces

Bethan enjoys exploring the relationships people have with objects in our daily lives and wonders how they can become cultural conduits: «I’ve always been interested in making works that connect to people and I play with the positivity that design can bring.

I always hope that my objects bring enjoyment to someone’s life, and it adds something to their life that there is a connection there. I like people to see different things in my works. I love when other people’s imagination takes over connected to my works. If I can create those planets, imaginative spaces with my work. I think that’s a nice thing to bring up in someone’s life».

Bethan Laura Wood – a design journey from Italy to Mexico

Since 2011 she has worked with the Nilufar Gallery to showcase her self-directed, limited edition and one-off works: «I’m connected with Italy, during my first travels to Italy I have been influenced because here’s where I met my galleries that I’ve worked with for years. I also discovered here’s artisan that I liked to work with. Italy was the first overseas trip for me that started making this dialogue within the work. Later, going to Mexico changed me, it let me experience a whole different sensibility to color. There’s a difference in my work pre and post visiting Mexico».

Clothes, makeup, pattern and color

Her eccentric approach to color is also extended to her outfits: «I’ve enjoyed dressing up and experimenting with clothes, makeup, pattern and color on my body for myself personally but I became comfortable with the idea of these things being connected during my master. Before then, I’ve tried to keep more of a separation between my personal choices and my work.

Today there is more an overlap but that a choice, and when I’m working on new colors, or interested in how to work with new shapes and forms, I may experiment those elements within the way I’m dressing and then that will feed into the work later once I have a confident over and out of work».

Different disciplines, different scales, different directions

Bethan Laura Wood’s work is versatile and constantly changing: «I’ve always worked in collaboration, I have a studio, with a small team that works with me, some of them have worked with me over eight or ten years. I enjoy having a small team that I work with, a studio where we develop things that we talk about ideas together, and in general I also enjoy the collaborative working with a particular craft person, to develop a language or experimenting with a particular material. I say that I have mixed discipline practice because I enjoy being able to move between disciplines and scales and exploring certain themes through directions. Every time I get an outcome».

Inside Bethan Laura Wood’s creative rhythm

Her creative routine also responds to this transversal and free flowing approach: «I get up and then I will have a meeting with Danea or Guillermo, two of the collaborators of my studio, depending on who’s working with me that day if they’re working in the UK or they’re working remotely. Then, normally by ten o’clock, I will be in my studio and when we’re working together from there, we might like to break at lunch and cook together.

I try to have a rhythm during the day, but it also depends from what point we are in a project. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of doing technical drawings, I need to just be zoned out and just working on my own. And I’ll just work, through the day and through the night because at that moment I’ll be in a rhythm and I have all the things in my head».

Bethan Laura Wood

Bethan Laura Wood has run a multidisciplinary studio since 2009 characterized by materials investigation, artisan collaboration and a passion for color and detail. Residencies and location-based projects have become a key factor in her design process, often working in response to her location, in collaboration with local manufacturers, or reflecting back into her work the visual and material culture particular to that area.

Elisa Russo