Wooden surfboards by Peter Walker

Wooden surfboards by Peter Walker:

Making Waves, an exhibition of 12 wooden surfboards opens on 8 February at the Gallery of Australian Design.

Finless Double-ender by Peter Walker, Western Red Cedar and multiple timbers

First shown at the Jam Factory in Adelaide in 2010, the exhibition has travelled to a less coastal destination – Canberra, Australia’s capital.

The show highlights 12 hollow wooden surfboards hand crafted by Peter Walker. Walker has used a multitude of techniques to construct and finish the boards – including timber joinery and laminating; bending, shaping, inlay, flaming, laser cutting, painting, and the more recent favourite – fibre glassing.

The boards are fully functional, and are designed to draw on the evolution of surfboard design history – from Tom Blake‘s design of the hollow board in 1929, to the birth of the fin in 1936, and Bob Simmons’ hydro-dynamic flow theories in the 1940s.

Walker collaborated with ceramic artist Gerry Wedd; industrial designer Quentin Gore and painter Phil Hayes for three of boards.

The Finless Double-ender (above) was an experimental design inspired by the rediscovery of ancient Hawaiian finless Alaia boards. "The 'mutated' aquatic forms relate to the mutated design of the board," says Walker.

One True Religion surfboard by Peter Walker

various timber boards by Peter Walker

The exhibition runs from 8 February to 12 March at the Gallery of Australian Design.