Walking into Lee Brennan’s furniture and jewellery showroom at Noosaville is like stepping into another dimension.
The dark moodiness is orphic and creates a place of reverie while perusing the treasures on display.
Whether it’s monolithic gates or a simple loop on a necklace, the items crafted in his workshop make a statement and bear a timeless quality that has won over the likes of Chris Hemsworth who said “they look like they’ve got a story to tell”.
Lee constructs custom-made furniture featuring the type of timber you’d find in an ancient shipwreck, weathered and worn, yet sturdy.
He’s passionate about the artistry of woodwork and eschews factory machinery for hand power tools, meaning no two pieces are alike.
“I think it affects the finished product. You’re almost forcing yourself to stay original in a way by limiting what you can do, sabotaging yourself in a way, to stay niche,” he said.
“It could be to our detriment, I’m not sure, but I think it’s helped us find a real niche of customer that wants a very specific style.”
Among Lee’s sources of inspiration are old world constructions such as Scandinavian barns.
But he found a kindred spirit in Belgian interior designer, Axel Vervoordt, known for his interpretation of wabi-sabi, a Japanese philosophy of appreciating the beauty of the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete in nature.
“It’s nice to see somebody that’s kind of doing something parallel because you can prototype that and maybe look to them as a mentor,” he said.
“When you love something, you grab it, you gravitate towards a certain style and his was a style that I loved.”
It’s a style in direct contrast to the breezy, white interiors synonymous with beach house designs, yet the rustic pieces feel as suitable for coastal environment.
“I think Noosa’s been dying for a little shake-up in a way, at least an option for that small percentage that does want to venture outside the boundaries,” he said.
“There’s so much potential to do other styles, not everybody lives on the beach, not every beach house has to be white.”
Lee’s jewellery tells a similar story to his furniture in its rough-hewn nature.
While his furniture making stems from a tradie background as a carpenter doing house builds, the jewellery has developed through a less formal practice.
“A friend of mine’s dad had a great workshop. He had an old forge to make car parts with and we used to tinker in there as young teenagers,” he said.
“I remembered back to those days and how much I loved that process.
“I bought a little farrier forge and then as I learned more, I gathered more tools.”
Lee draws a distinction between jewellery making with precious metals versus his choice of material, steel, which involves blacksmithing skills.
“With silver you can set it up in your apartment, it melts quickly at a low temperature, it’s very soft, you can use small files,” he said.
Steel on the other hand is less forgiving and rather than smelting the material into a mould which can be used repeatedly, Lee forges each piece by hand.
“Steel is just a much more industrial style process, it’s a lot more sculptural because you have to start from a bigger piece and sculpt it down to what you want, rather than casting a wax mould,” he said.
“So each piece is very individual, there’s no mass production, each is one of a kind.”
The rings, necklaces, earrings and cuffs on display range from chunky biker skulls to refined quills, highly-polished bling to burnished pieces, all bearing the marks of the forgery process.
“It’s hard to communicate the difference between steel and silver because the perceived value of silver is there,” he said.
“With steel, the process is so much different and what they’re getting is so much more unique.”
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For his next project, Lee plans to design an accommodation to embody his artistic vision.
“My wife has been in the hotel business so she has a passion for it too. We’d both love to produce a space for people to live in or stay in that’s been crafted completely by us,” he said.
“We do a lot of interior jobs for other people and I’m not saying they get in the way, but they have their own vision that meets our vision and it always becomes a combination of the two rather than just one pure vision.
“So that’s probably like the North Star at the moment for us.”
Lee Brennan’s showroom is open by appointment.
For more information, see Lee Brennan Design and Foundry.
