With a background in material science and engineering, Trevelyan navigated a gradual transition from the sciences to the arts. The designer’s influences range from the natural textures and colours surrounding him during his upbringing in Australia to the cellular and crystalline morphology that emerged in the electron microscopy projects from his earlier career. More recent interests include the patterns found in aerial photographs of natural, industrial and agricultural land.
Favouring physical models and prototypes over sketching, Trevelyan seeks a balance between ambiguity and familiarity, interlinking form, colour and texture to provoke curiosity in the observer. He is interested in how small fluctuations shape our perception of form and how an object can transition from awkward to graceful through incremental alterations to a particular characteristic. In his studio, the designer creates test pieces, models and maquettes that combine the physicality of hand-sculpting, casting and texturing materials with the detail and precision of digital fabrication.
Trevelyan’s carefully studied sculptural form and intensive processes of experimentation are exemplified by recent projects such as Fuse, a series of works merging simple pebble-like forms inspired by wooden puzzles from the designer’s childhood and by maquettes in which pins are used to temporarily assemble larger structures. The Gyre series, meanwhile, melds digital fabrication with hand-sculpting and finishing, with works made of elegantly looped structures of 3D printed sand and resin applied with multiple layers of thickened, pigmented epoxy. First shown together at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London in 2024, both series act as assemblages of uniform morphologies, exploring the creation and coherence of sculptural structures.
