It has been a roller-coaster for anyone attempting to present new work since the beginning of March 2020. Avant-garde designer Trent Jansen and Nyikina man, Johnny Nargoodah’s second collaborative outing entitled Partu was launched during Melbourne Design Week in March then was scheduled to be exhibited in Sydney at Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert. Covid-19 looked like putting a stop to this second show but luckily the easing of restriction in Australia in recent weeks has allowed galleries to reopen and for the second iteration of the Partu exhibition to go ahead.

The Partu collection at ARC ONE Gallery during Melbourne Design Week. The collection included several chair and bench forms in editions of 5 - 20 (+ 2 Artist Proofs) and Saddle Vessels in open edition. Photograph by Tom Ross.

Partu was developed in Jansen’s studio in Thirroul on the New South Wales south coast with Jansen and Nargoodah coming together three times over a period of eighteen months. Having swapped design ideas over this period these ‘making sessions’ were about collaborative creation of the final forms and finessing the details they had discussed remotely. Nargoodah’s experience in working as a saddler on cattle stations around the Kimberley and Jansen’s past experimentation with animal hides and pelts on projects for Broached Commissions allowed the process to be intuitive.

The Ngumu Jangka Warnti Bench at ARC ONE Gallery, showing how the collection utilises a grid pattern while delivering asymmetry. Photograph by Tom Ross. — The Ngumu Jangka Warnti Bench at ARC ONE Gallery, showing how the collection utilises a grid pattern while delivering asymmetry. Photograph by Tom Ross.

Jansen and Nargoodah have been collaborating since 2016 when they met while Jansen was researching for a project in the Fitzroy Crossing area east of Broome in the north of Western Australia. Their first collaboration was on a group project in 2017 for the Fremantle Arts Centre called In Cahoots. Their work involved Mangkaja artist, Rita Minga and was an interpretation of a local mythical creature called Jangarra in the form of an abstract armchair. This piece, completed in November 2017, is now part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. The same year Jansen and Nargoodah developed the Collision Collection, where they experimented with old car panels found in the scrub around Fitzroy Crossing and how these discarded parts could lead to dynamic sculptural outcomes. The application of leather to these pieces was the start of Jansen and Nargoodah’s shared obsession with skins or in Walmajarri language, ‘Partu’. This later ecame the overarching name for their new collection.

The Ngumu Jangka Warnti Chair with its leather skin tracing the metal diamond pattern hidden within. Photograph: Tom Ross. — The Ngumu Jangka Warnti Chair with its leather skin tracing the metal diamond pattern hidden within. Photograph: Tom Ross.

At the centre of the new collection is a series of seating forms that maintain an organic quality despite being constructed from a geometric grid. The undulating surfaces of the leather recalls the sand hills of the Australian desert with a complex array of shadows and highlights. There is a real sense of energy to both the surface and the shapes of the pieces. It is as if they are about to move or suddenly pounce.

Detail of the Partu chair showing the soft diamond pattern achieved by laminating two pieces of leather over an expanded aluminium sheet material typically used for security grills. Photograph: Tom Ross.

‘Ngumu Jangka Warnti’ is the Walmajarri phrase for ‘whole lot from rubbish’ and it summarises the informal collaborative approach that is a feature of the Partu collection. Using recycled aluminium mesh found at a local scrap yard, Jansen and Nargoodah cut and bent the material into rough chair shapes that were sandwiched between two hides of New Zealand saddle leather. The flexibility of this approach lead to an entire collection of Ngumu Jangka Warnti seating objects including a Highback Chair, a Low Chair and bench.

Using recycled aluminium mesh found at a local scrap yard, Jansen and Nargoodah set about cutting and bending the material into rough chair shapes that were sandwiched between hides of New Zealand saddle leather. Photograph: Romello Pereira.

The image above shows Nargoodah using simple tools like Vice-Grips to render the basic shape. More extreme methods were also used including beating with concrete blocks and tree stumps. In this way the objects from the Ngumu Jangka Warnti part of the Partu collection are not prototyped but created at a 1:1 scale with each piece essentially unique, albeit based around a common idea, material and construction method.

Jansen and Nargoodah contemplate a completed example of a Ngumu Jangka Warnti chair. Photograph: Romello Pereira

An exceptional understanding of the properties of leather was required to achieve the very different types of objects that make up the collection - with forming, gluing, stitching and draping all being used.

Nargoodah and Jansen wrestle with perfecting the generous excess of leather that is a signature of the collection’s Saddle Armchair and Saddle Vessels. Photograph by Marlo Lyda.

The first sketch that Nargoodah made for the Partu collection was of an elongated saddle. Through what Jansen terms a sketch exchange, he and Nargoodah sent sketches back and forth between Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia and Jansen’s studio in Thirroul in NSW, to rough out the concept. This idea was then refined when the two men came together to make the objects at Jansen’s studio. Experimenting with stretching leather over the spaces between surfaces, the pair settled on a type of leather called Elmogrand, a Scandinavian aniline upholstery leather supplied by Instyle. Selected for its ability to bridge between physical elements (in this case wood and metal) in a smooth and consistent way, Elmogrand allowed the designers to create an imposing piece that was less about craft and more about architectural concepts like tension, structure, light, shadow and form.

The Saddle Bench was the original piece conceived by Johnny Nargoodah for the collection. It plays on an elongated saddle motif with the leather tightly stretched across its plywood form. The stainless steel bars at each end are also leather clad. P… — The Saddle Bench was the original piece conceived by Johnny Nargoodah for the collection. It plays on an elongated saddle motif with the leather tightly stretched across its plywood form. The stainless steel bars at each end are also leather clad. Photograph by Romello Pereira.

The collection’s other pieces are collectively called Saddle Vessels (2020) but each object has a distinctive personality. Smooth dished surfaces where the leather is glued to a substrate, is contrasted with the main body of the vessel where the leather is allowed to fall or is gathered in delicate folds. The Saddle vessels are produced in open edition.