Przemek Krawczyński’s lamps are much more than that. Made of gourd—a dried tropical fruit that originates in Senegal, Guinea, and Mali—they are intricately carved using precise measurements and specialized tools.
According to the Polish sculpture, the structure of dried gourd is more homogeneous than the structure of the standard wood, as it does not contain growth rings, fibers, or knots. When light passes through the thin layer of the gourd’s wood, it becomes red and orange. The result, more often than not, is magical.
Each one of a kind piece takes months to complete and includes many laborious stages. Krawczyński explains on his website that the first stage is skinning the gourd and cleaning the inside, after which he designs the patterns right away on the gourd, using previously applied grids.
“Sometimes the designing stage is the longest and the most difficult, but most of the time the carving and the drilling are the most labor-intensive,” he notes. “Once the pattern is designed I engrave the contours. The next steps is marking the place of every single hole and painting of the gourd.”
Krawczyński adds that his biggest sources of inspiration include fractal art, geometry, and all types of geometrical, harmonious patterns and constructions. “In my projects, I look for harmony and cohesion,” he writes. “I enjoy complicated, varied, and composite patterns; nothing about their arrangement is random.”
If only we could afford a piece…
