Written in Wood: work by Kevin Perkins
Richard Flanagan (left) with Kevin Perkins seated on Wanting, named after the book which Richard dedicated to Kevin.
Words: Linda Nathan, Wood Review editor
When wood and words come together, music can be made. The five works inspired by the writings of Richard Flanagan and made by Kevin Perkins are a love song to Tasmania that tell stories of origin and human values. Theirs is a friendship based on mutual appreciation and respect that goes back over 30 years.
‘Those wonderful Tasmanian novels of Flan’s I’ve re-interpreted out of great respect for his genius. He’s just taken Tasmania to a huge new awareness, with a bigger audience, making people aware of Tasmania’s uniqueness’, said Kevin Perkins.
Titled Written in Wood, the exhibition features a series of benches with sculptural and carved elements that showed at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery from December 2024 to March 2025. Once again, Kevin has used woods salvaged from logging and hydro operations, retaining some of their natural forms and surfaces, and incorporating incised letters and whittled carvings of native birds and fish. They relate to the themes of five of Richard Flanagan’s books, and also to their personal connection.
Detail views of Wanting bench seat, 2023, 2800 x 900 x 2000mm high Huon pine bench with King William pine black-stained swan flying above. ‘The seat slab/log was salvaged from Lake Burbury in the early 1990s. A hard-grown tree with lots of tension but providing a good surface for incising text. Richard Flanagan dedicated this novel to me.’
The work is quintessential Perkins. Now 80, Kevin started his journey at the age of 14 as a joiner/carpenter apprentice. He followed the path of his elder brother, and as it happened, one of his convict forebears, a joiner by trade sent to Van Diemen’s Land for stealing a pair of clogs.
An apprentice of the year award allowed Kevin to study and work in New South Wales for three months before returning to Tasmania where he worked and taught and later established himself as an independent furniture maker.
The Sound of One Hand Clapping, 2023, 2300 x 1000 x 1200mm high, Huon pine bench with carved pink robins and incised lettering. ‘Richard and Rolf de Heer directed a film of this book, with the same title. The organic Huon pine form was salvaged from Lake Burbury by Bernie Bradshaw in the late 1980s.
Years later, a Churchill Fellowship took Kevin to America and England for further study. This taught him to trust the direction he was already taking. ‘I felt that I didn’t really learn a lot going away, because my journey was different, it reassured me of the path I was taking and gave me confidence to continue. I didn’t have to compete. I occupied a small vacuum that no one had sat in before, and that local pantry of woods and our stories was special to me, and I could have a unique life exploring those.’
Over the decades Kevin Perkins has designed and made for many public commissions and continued his ‘personal’ work which focuses on highlighting the natural beauty of salvaged wood, ‘specialty’ Tasmanian species often left after logging operations.
Gould’s Book of Fish, 2023, 2500 x 1600 x 1700mm high. ‘A Huon pine side table with incised lettering and carvings in Huon, King William pine, horizontal and ebony. The Huon pine and King William pine were salvaged from the Crotty region, West Coast of Tasmania. The 12 paintings of fish by William Buelow Gould, convict artist on Sarah Island, Macquarie Harbour (1822–1833) are held in the Allport Library, Hobart. These paintings inspired Richard Flanagan’s novel of the same name, where in caricature, he matched twelve paintings of fish by Gould to the people in authority on Sarah Island.’
In particular, Kevin’s work is known and loved for its sculptural and graphic elements. His Cape Barren bookcases are topped with carvings of those birds – a homage to their survival amidst environmental pressures. Thylacine cabinets feature saw-toothed drawer front overlays that contrast Huon pine and myrtle. The work shown for Written in Wood is adorned with small and large birds, fish and a range of sea creatures – all of which speak of appreciation for nature.
Kevin has worked extensively with respected architects such as Robert Morris-Nunn, and in particular Aldo Giurgola, architect of Parliament House in Canberra. Kevin designed and made the furniture for the prime minister’s office.
Cape Barren Goose chest in myrtle
In his exhibition opening speech, Richard Flanagan said: ‘On the day the new parliament house was opened, Aldo Guirgola – memorably and accurately – described Kevin Perkins as an artist who could make wood sing.’
Richard also spoke of their connection. ‘I first met Kev in 1992 when he, I and the celebrated architect Robert Morris-Nunn came together to make the Strahan Visitor Centre, an interpretation centre celebrating 40,000 years of human history in south-west Tasmania. I had never before met a man who more put me in mind of a wedge tailed eagle. For Kev was elemental and unique. I was struck by his piercing, darting gaze that seemed to see everything, his extraordinary combination of ease and restless surging energy, circling and circling before swooping down to erupt from the earth with another cabinet, table, chair, or sculpture held aloft.’
Thylacine drawer chest in Huon pine and Tasmanian tiger myrtle
Richard Flanagan was the historian for the Strahan Centre project, and at the time, also worked as river guide. When they met, Kevin recalls, ‘Richard promptly said we need to raft the Franklin, of which he’d been down probably a dozen times or more. At that stage he used to take groups of people down.’ They seemed to hit it off right from the start. ‘Well, he’s from the West Coast, and I’m from the north-west coast and we both live in the south’, said Kevin. Richard would stay at Kevin’s place during the Strahan Centre project and their families grew close from that time. ‘It’s been a very close friendship and still is,’ said Kevin.
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Death of a River Guide, 2023, ‘bookmatched’ Tasmanian blackwood benches, 3730 x 300 x 460mm high. ‘Grown and harvested on my property, split in two to allow numerous configurations – arching, at 90°, or end to end. Inspired by rafting the Franklin River with Richard in 1990. There were lots of Huon pine and blackwood lining the heavily rain-forested banks. It also references the dark tannin-stained river water and the river-worn rocks and logs.’
The idea of making works inspired by Richard’s books seemed to grow organically. ‘When Richard wrote ‘Wanting’ he dedicated it to me. He said it was the most crafted work he’d done. And I had a little bit of a reputation at that time, and Richard had a little bit of a reputation, and I guess he’d taken on a little bit of how I live. How I make a cabinet is like writing a book. You’ve got to have good structure.’
Acknowledging the origin of the wood and its unique properties has always been important to Kevin. ‘On a fair bit of my work I leave a bit of rawness just to show where things come from. In the logging days, the piners were only after straight timber for boats and they left all the other headwood and bentwood and rootwood, but they’re still quite usable even after a hundred years of being on the ground, and I’ve always thought that’s such a wonderful resource.’
Question 7, 2024, 3020 x 860 x 830mm high. ‘Birdseye Huon pine bookmatched boards with a serpentine (line of beauty) naturally-grown Huon pine backrest, horizontal multi-faceted legs and incised lettering.’
‘As a young apprentice joiner, I grew up buying timber off the rack to make a sash or a window, or a cupboard or table. But I always wanted to see where trees grew, what their shade of green represented when you started cutting. Once you get off the straight stem, you’ve got all this turbulent, wonderful, figured wood, and in different shades that gives you a huge palette to work with. Making with salvaged wood, you’re giving it a lot more respect that just leaving it on the ground.’
After 60 years as a maker, Kevin’s work still carries the same wider meaning about knowing the origin and value of the materials you work with, and acknowledging our connections to the environment, family and friends.
Photos by Jesse Hunniford and Simon Cuthbert, courtesy Kevin Perkins and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, see www.tmag.tas.gov.au.
Photos by Jesse Hunniford and Simon Cuthbert, courtesy Kevin Perkins and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, installation view above by Rudi de Beer.
First published in Australian Wood Review magazine, issue #127, June 2025