Intarsia wall art: design, making and effect

What makes an intarsia wall piece

An intarsia wall piece is a surface of fitted pieces of veneer that is not used but looked at. The picture comes from the wood alone: from the difference in lightness between the woods, from their grain and from the joints between them. Paint, print or engraving play no part. What happens on a few centimetres of a pen holder spreads here across a whole surface.

That brings different tasks from small objects. A pen holder is picked up and seen up close; a wall piece also has to work from across the room. It needs a form that carries at a distance, a surface that stays flat for years, and a place where the light helps the wood.

Two viewing distances

Every wall piece is seen twice. From three or four metres only the large form counts: how light and dark are spread, the direction of the lines, the weight of the areas. Up close the details count: the grain of each piece, a knot, the sharpness of the joints. A good picture has something to offer at both distances.

For the design that means the large form first, then the wood. If a motif cannot be read from a distance, it cannot be rescued up close. Conversely, a strong form needs calm, well-chosen woods so that it does not look arbitrary up close. How shapes change with size is explained in scaling veneer patterns.

Language of form: free or geometric

Intarsia is not tied to any one language of form, and a wall piece is where that shows most clearly. Flow works with soft curves that run across the surface and recall water or layered rock. Fracture works with straight edges breaking out of a single point. Both are laid from the same woods, yet the effect is opposite: calm in one, charged in the other.

Free forms call for even curves without a kink, because any hesitation in cutting stays visible in the finished picture as a jag. Geometric forms call for straight edges that meet exactly; in Fracture the black lines show every deviation. Which form you choose is a design decision, not a way to make the craft easier. For geometric designs, planning geometric patterns sets out the method.

Photo: Reihax

Woods as tonal steps

In a wall piece the woods take the role that shades of grey have in a drawing. Two woods make a clear two-tone picture, graphic like a paper cut-out. Three or four woods add steps in between, and with them depth: areas can come forward and step back, and transitions get softer.

Flow and Fracture use four steps. Wenge is the deepest dark, walnut a warm middle brown, oak and ash the light tones. What matters is that neighbouring areas differ clearly enough in lightness; two woods of similar lightness next to each other blur into one area from a distance. How to weigh lightness against colour temperature is covered in contrast and colour temperature.

Then there is the grain. If it runs along the length of a band or a shard, it strengthens the movement of the form; if it runs across, it slows it. The decision is made for every single piece (grain direction).

Edging: frame or inlaid border

A wall piece needs an edge where it ends. There are two ways to give it one. A frame holds the picture from outside, protects the edges of the board and sets it off from the wall with a narrow shadow gap. An inlaid border of dark veneer, by contrast, belongs to the intarsia itself: the form runs up to this border and ends there, and the panel does without a frame.

Photo: Reihax

The frame gives the look of a classic picture; the inlaid border looks flatter, more object than picture. Flow has both side by side, and Fracture is framed.

Photo: Reihax

From design to finished surface

Making a wall piece follows the same chain of work as any intarsia, only on a larger surface. The pieces of veneer are cut and fitted until the picture is closed without a gap (assembling an intarsia). Then it is glued and pressed onto a substrate (gluing and pressing).

Photo: Reihax

On a surface of 40 × 40 cm the substrate matters more than on a small object. It has to be stable, and like any veneered board it needs a balancing veneer on the back, so that the pull of the veneer is the same on both sides and the board stays flat. A wall piece that cups slightly after one winter shows at once in raking light.

Which substrates are suitable is described in substrates. After that it is sanded flush in stages (sanding veneer) and protected with a finish that deepens every tone and sharpens the contrast for the wall (finishing veneer).

Photo: Reihax

Light and hanging

Wood changes with light, and a wall piece hangs in the same place for years. Direct sun changes the woods at different speeds: ash and oak turn more yellow, walnut rather lighter, wenge hardly at all, and the planned contrast shifts (UV light and ageing). A wall without direct sun is kind to the picture. The spot right above a radiator is just as unfavourable, because quick changes of warmth and humidity strain the surface.

Side light, on the other hand, is a gain. A lamp or a window whose light falls across the picture at an angle brings out the grain and makes areas with a different fibre direction shine differently. For the height, the rule for any picture applies: the centre at about eye level, so that you do not look up at the surface from close by. A dry, soft cloth is all the care it needs (caring for handmade wooden objects).

How Reihax builds wall pieces

Reihax wall pieces measure 40 × 40 cm and are laid from four woods: wenge, walnut, oak and ash. Each panel is sold only once and is numbered; on Flow the back carries the title, number, year and the woods used. A motif can be laid more than once, but no piece is the same as another, because every wood brings its own figure.

Photo: Reihax

The current wall pieces and their story are on the product pages Flow and Fracture.