Jan Waterston

Jan Waterston (b. Birmingham, UK) is a British artist working at the intersection of art, craft and design. His practice is rooted in a deep understanding of wood and traditional cabinet making, developed through a sculptural language that places material, form and making at its centre.

Waterston grew up in Birmingham, surrounded by the industrial landscape of the city. Skateboarding was an early and formative influence, taking him through Birmingham’s streets and changing the way he observed architecture, surfaces and the possibilities of the built environment. Graffiti and the raw creative energy of the city were equally significant. Raised in a Polish-English household, Waterston also grew up within a family shaped by his grandparents’ experience as refugees and by the community surrounding Birmingham’s Polish social club.

His route into making was not direct. After completing a Fine Art foundation, Waterston found the openness of the blank canvas difficult to navigate and initially entered working life through labour. His encounter with furniture making provided a different way into creative expression, giving him the technical framework through which ideas could gradually take physical form.

Waterston completed a City & Guilds qualification in cabinet making at Leamington Spa College before studying Furniture Design and Fine Craft at Rycotewood Furniture School, graduating with First Class Honours. He subsequently undertook a year-long residency at the Sylva Wood Foundation, where he continued to develop his relationship with wood and refine his practice.

In 2016, Waterston established his independent studio, developing speculative works, limited editions, concept-led furniture collections and commissioned pieces. Working primarily in wood, he combines the knowledge and discipline of traditional woodworking with contemporary processes, while resisting the idea of craft as a fixed set of rules.

His work explores duality, imbalance and connection, drawing on geological formations and the simultaneous processes of growth and erosion. Increasingly, Waterston is interested in developing families of related objects and in the spatial relationships that exist between them, extending his thinking beyond the individual work towards the way objects, architecture and the spaces between them are experienced together.

Working independently from his UK studio, Waterston has undertaken international commissions and collaborations with architects, interior designers, curators and private collectors.