By Nicole Horowitz
F Boke is a Los Angeles born artist. He considers himself a furniture designer who primarily works with wood. He enjoys working with materials like glass, stone, and metal to emphasize the beauty of wood.
He says he loves working furniture because he found that he had an “eye for composition” and enjoyed “the permanence of doing things that don’t just go away.”
Before he began creating furniture, he worked in set design. In this field, he spent time “fabricating a lot of stuff from different styles and eras,” which helped keep his horizons broad and his options open.
His furniture design focuses on using materials that would’ve otherwise been thrown away.
He likes the idea of making something new from something old, and thus, he based his artistic endeavors with sustainable materials. The objects he uses in his art come from repurposing companies who have warehouses full of reusable items. Boke also utilizes his friends who are in the set industry to create his current projects. Boke shared he enjoys improving himself in his art is through collaboration.
“New ideas can be created through collaboration; collaboration greatly exceeds what two people can create individually,” Boke says.
His use of various different artistic mediums has kept Boke’s mind open artistically. He discovers new art forms by creating his own pieces through his ability to fearlessly utilize new mediums.
With his love of collaboration, it makes sense that his favorite art experience was collaboration. He built a ten story metal sculpture with one hundred and fifty other people at Burning Man. This collaboration was an enjoyable and eye opening experience. Boke is the type of artist who always creates and jumps between projects with ease. When he’s not creating, he’s drawing.
What motivates him to keep creating is a lack of distractions. The ability to create art often, and in various unique genres and eras is one of Boke’s strengths.
He also has found the perfect technique to age wood in order to create an inviting and comfortable piece of furniture.
Finally, he has a skilled eye for styles: his extensive training has given this strength. However, he considers his lack of self-promotion a weakness: he’s the type who prefers to spend his time creating.
The places that inspire him to create the most are Spain and Ireland, with their “rolling cathedrals” and “ancient styles” he appreciates that they have an “amazing presence” about them. As for people who inspire Boke? He considers artist Salvador Dali and architect Frank Lloyd Wright inspirations. Boke considers them “two people in particular who broke the rules, made a difference.”
You can see more of F Boke’s work at fboke.com.