Max Lamb’s work plays with the tradition of the working rural landscape — the Cornish beach as a foundry, the granite quarry as a workshop, felled yew trees of the Chatsworth estate as subject and source material. He is equally fascinated by the city, and his ability to adapt and respond to different environments produces designs that are uniquely of their time and place.
Max is not committed to a single material or process, nor is he attracted to design as a means to solve problems. Rather he exploits the qualities inherent in a material to draw out its natural tendencies and beauty. His methods are high- and low-tech, and he is both designer and manufacturer, collaborating with foundries and factories as the scale or complexity of the project necessitates. His interest in exploring both traditional and unconventional ways of making has resulted in a diverse body of work. However, there is continuity in the principles that he applies — honesty to material, a celebration of the process and of human capability, and its limitations.
