The majority of us desert a task after a few weeks of disappointment. Olivier Gomis rested on one for 5 years, then returned and completed it. The Bowl Curved Pursuit is Gomis’s most current release, a handmade woodturning that looks, in the beginning look, like it was generated by some algorithmic design software rather than made by two hands in a workshop. The curves twist and rotate in a manner that feels nearly mathematically exact, each wood segment following the one before it in a pattern that spirals elegantly around the bowl’s body. It’s the sort of item that makes you look two times, then a third time, attempting to exercise how it was really made. That’s kind of the point.
Gomis, a French woodturner and furnishings maker, has actually been developing a reputation for styles that sit right at the edge of what woodworking is supposed to appear like. His work doesn’t whisper “rustic” or “farmhouse.” It states something closer to “sculpture” and means it. His portfolio covers coloured pencil vases, enormous segmented bowls, and geometric pieces that would not keep an eye out of location in a contemporary design gallery. However the Curved Pursuit feels like a moment of arrival, a style he plainly could not let go of until he got it right.
Designer Name: Oliveri Gomis
The process is deceptively systematic. Gomis developed the bowl by slowly stacking and rotating wood pieces before cutting them on a table saw, then installed the entire structure on a lathe and carved it into its last type. That series, stacking, turning, cutting, turning, sounds basic enough till you think about just how much accuracy is required at every phase. A miscalculation in the rotation angle and the whole pattern collapses into something normal. The five-year gap between conception and completion makes a lot more sense when you understand those margins.
What gets me about this bowl is how visible the thinking is. You can trace the reasoning of the design just by taking a look at it. The sections aren’t decorative afterthoughts, they’re structural choices, every one informing the curve that follows.
For a piece of functional decoration, that’s a rare quality. A lot of objects in this category are either beautiful or interesting. The Curved Pursuit handles to be both, and does it without trying to describe itself.< img src=" https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2026/07/five-years-one-bowl-and-a-woodturner-who-refused-to-quit/bowl-04.jpg "alt =""width="1280"height="960"/ >< img src= "// www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%201280%20960%22%3E%3C/svg%3E" data-src="https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2026/07/five-years-one-bowl-and-a-woodturner-who-refused-to-quit/bowl-04.jpg"alt="" width= "1280 "height= "960 "/ > The price sits at $ 372 USD, readily available to purchase on commission. That number may give some people stop briefly, however I ‘d argue it’s practically suspiciously affordable for what you’re getting. This isn’t a production piece pulled from a conveyor belt. It’s a hand-built item that required five years of problem-solving to even exist. Commissioning one suggests you’re basically getting a slice of a really particular creative obsession, which is not something that winds up on the majority of people’s shelves by mishap. There’s likewise a wider conversation taking place here about craft in the age of mass production. We live at a minute when almost anything can be printed, extruded, or produced at scale, and yet the hunger for handmade objects keeps growing. Not out of fond memories precisely, but out of a genuine desire to own something that brings a human fingerprint. Gomis’s work taps straight into that. His YouTube channel files every step of his procedure with no shortcuts hidden, which is both a wise relocation and a generous one. Enjoying him work makes the completed things more meaningful, not less. You come away from his videos understanding not simply how a piece was made, but why it matters.
The Bowl Curved Pursuit is the type of style that rewards attention. It doesn’t immediately offer whatever away. The more you sit with it, the more the geometry exposes itself, the precision, the persistence, the specific stubbornness it requires to go back to something after five years and finally decide it’s prepared. Someplace between design and craft, between art things and kitchen counter, Gomis has actually made something really hard to classify. If that sounds like a compliment, it is.
< img src="https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2026/07/five-years-one-bowl-and-a-woodturner-who-refused-to-quit/bowl-09.jpg" alt ="" width="1280" height="960"/ > < img src ="// www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%201280%20960%22%3E%3C/svg%3E" data-src="https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2026/07/five-years-one-bowl-and-a-woodturner-who-refused-to-quit/bowl-09.jpg" alt ="" width="1280" height="960"/ >