“Panels” are an ongoing project emerging from Stefan Rurak’s craft as a custom furniture-maker. “Panels” pieces are works possessing solely an aesthetic value developed from materials and processes originally intended for utility. This purpose contrasts against the intentions of furniture-making which at its best is a synthesis of aesthetics and utility.
The scrap materials and waste generated by the creation of utilitarian objects now find a second life as an object without function. The “Panel” object stands on its own for itself, not for any purpose outside of it. It is the furniture-making that determines the materials in the panel and therefore the “Panel” itself.
This dialectic between external purpose and internal value becomes more interesting when, in the creation of the “Panel”, Rurak finds inspiration for a piece of furniture, such as his unique steel finish. A circle of creation is formed and it becomes difficult to distinguish where the process begins and ends.