Geoffrey Young is a Taranaki-based craftsman, furniture maker and designer who is deeply passionate about creating functional and sculptural works of art.

Geoffrey’s work is an exploration of interconnectivity, showing how forms relate and connect to each other. His work is known for its complex joints, angles and physicality as well as its geometric shapes and organic forms. Using a range of mostly native woods including miro, puriri and tawa, Geoffrey’s creative work includes functional design-based furniture as well as sculptural pieces.

Geoffrey has worked on a series of works, completing six pieces of furniture out of his New Plymouth-based studio as well as a series of sculptures which are raw forms born from breaking free of a more refined way of seeing his practice.

The collection features abstract furniture - six side and occasional tables. These pieces showcase a relationship between organic as well as sharp dynamic forms through the use of contrasting timbers, forms and the play between natural and built forms. Featuring geometric shapes and abstract lines, they play with the perception of weight as well as a balance of feminine and masculine energies. Geoffrey says the pieces are informed by the energy of actions - movements that are direct and intentional but also graceful.

Geoffrey's sculptural figurative works are small wood carvings on andesite stone bases, they are bony forms akin to the human form but also an abstraction based on personal interpretation. Through these works, he has been more informed by the carving process as opposed to the materials he is using. They are a contrast to earlier work which was more refined and fluid in shape.
The pieces are a response to his evolving relationship with his body, reflecting a way of expressing and connecting with himself. This follows Geoffrey's exploration of dance as an outlet and a way to embody emotions and states of mind and his body’s responses to these.

Geoffrey says his latest work feels more honest. The act of creating has felt meditative in the way he has felt less concerned with the end result and more intent on focusing on the process as an emotional, spiritual and physical outlet.