Craft Victoria is a proud supporter of Fringe Furniture as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. In 2009 Craft Victoria presented the inaugural 'Innovation in Crafted Design' prize to a Fringe Furniture entrant. The winner of the prize in 2009 was Marcus O'Reilly, who exhibits two pieces in enCOUNTER during September 2010.

Marcus O’Reilly has been designing and making furniture for over 25 years. Often his work as an architect has resulted in furniture commissions: sometimes his furniture design has led to architectural projects.

Flotsam and Jetsam is a composite of pieces of boats, bait cutting boards, packing containers, bits of buildings and fences, marker pegs, signs, paint stirrers and anything that has had a past life.

The inspiration for this current show stems from a simple need – to make a coffee table. Named the Flotsam and Jetsam table, the coffee table then spawned a variety of linked pieces, including dining tables and cabinets.

From its inclusion in the 2009 Fringe Furniture show, the humble Flotsam and Jetsam then began a journey around cyberspace, as one blog after another, along with various international design magazines, carried images of the coloured driftwood slats set within an elegant steel frame.

The slats have been crafted into a unified whole, with enough of their original character retained to arouse curiosity about how these pieces started out, what they may have been used for, and their journey to the dunes, rocks or breakwaters in which they were found.

www.marcusoreilly.com