Stockholm 2015: Japanese designer Yuki Yoshikawa of Nanashiproducts used layers of acrylic gouache paint to highlight wood grains on the seat and back of these simple chairs.

Yuki Yoshikawa of Nanashiproducts developed the Grain Chair for the waiting rooms of Japanese beauty parlours.

The design is handmade in collaboration with woodworking craftsmen in Japan. Solid cherry wood forms the supporting frame and legs, while the seat and back are made from sections of kalopanax – a native Japanese tree.

Once the chairs are assembled, the kalopanax is hand-painted with gouache – a type of opaque paint similar to watercolour but consisting of pigment, a binding agent and occasionally an inert material such as chalk.

The coloured paint is applied to pick out the grain in the wood, then filed down with sand paper and repainted multiple times until the desired effect is achieved.

"I wanted to create something that had never been available before," said Yoshikawa. "Not in form, but in the quality of materials used. I thought beautifully embellishing wooden materials would be interesting as a new experiment."

The green, red and blue colours were chosen to represent spring leaves, autumn leaves and the sky.

"I wanted to take inspiration from the colours and shapes found in nature and use this in designs that evoke human emotion," Yoshikawa said.

Yuki Yoshikawa graduated from the Nagoya Mode Gakuen College of Design in Japan and is now working as a freelance designer in Gifu, Japan.

The Grain Chairs were launched at the Stockholm Furniture Fair earlier this month in the Greenhouse area, which is used to promote work by emerging designers.