Scholarship recipient of 2025: Jonte Ramsten
From music and theater to cabinetmaking, veneer, and marquetry. Jonte Ramsten’s journeyman piece, Black Box, is a dark cube that opens into an entire world of visual storytelling, stagecraft, and highly refined craftsmanship. It is a piece where creativity takes center stage – and where sharp tools have been essential.
A Black Box Filled With Possibilities
Jonte Ramsten studied cabinetmaking at Malmstens, Linköping University. Before working with furniture, he spent many years as an actor and musician – experiences that are also visible in his approach to craft. Although cabinetmaking is rooted in material, precision, and function, Jonte has never let go of artistic expression. In the future, he hopes to combine his earlier professions with new projects in marquetry and intarsia.
That movement between disciplines is present throughout Black Box. It is a cabinet, but also a stage, a story, and a work of art. When closed, it appears as a dark cube in smoked oak. When opened, it unfolds into an approximately 1.5-meter-wide image space in marquetry, inspired by old altarpieces. The cabinet was designed by Jonte together with Odd Åsberg, while the marquetry motif was drawn by Linnea Nilsson-Lundell and crafted by Jonte Ramsten.
The name comes from theater. A black box is a black-painted performance space where the distinction between audience and stage is often flexible, and where almost any world can be created. Jonte transfers that idea into wood: a single board can become a chair, a table, a cutting board, a cabinet, or something else entirely. It all depends on creativity, craftsmanship, and what happens in the meeting between hand, tool, and material.
When Function Gives Way to Art
In furniture, we often talk about function, usefulness, and practical solutions. With Black Box, Jonte wanted to shift the focus. Function is not absent, but it gives way to art, playfulness, and storytelling.
The cabinet is built in several layers. First, the viewer encounters the closed black cube. When the doors open, a large marquetry artwork appears. When the central flap door is opened, the inside of the cabinet is revealed, with an interior reminiscent of an elevated theater stage with a curved backdrop. On the back is what the audience does not normally see: the backstage area, where construction, slats, a hidden key, and brass counterweights become part of the story.
The details are as carefully considered as the overall concept. The key is designed as two theater masks – one side happy, the other sad. On the small stage stands a sculpture, a magnetic stone placed on a small podium. Together, these elements make the piece more than a cabinet. It becomes a miniature theater in wood.
Sharpness in Every Step
A large part of Black Box consists of veneer and marquetry. In that kind of work, the margins are small.
"A significant part of the cabinet is a large artwork in marquetry. Even though I cut the marquetry with a scroll saw, sharp knives were essential when working with the veneer."
When thin pieces of veneer are cut, fitted, and joined without distracting gaps, every edge matters. A dull knife tears, compresses, and frays. A sharp edge gives control. For Jonte, sharpness was therefore not just a helpful tool – it was a prerequisite for the expression itself.
"Throughout the work, sharp tools were crucial in order to achieve the best possible result."
Black Box was created as a journeyman piece and has been recognized for its exceptional level of craftsmanship. Jonte's work received the highest possible score on the journeyman test: 5.0.
The Next Stage: Moomin and Tormek Art Exhibition
When we met Jonte, his next project was already taking shape: a cabinet inspired by Tove Jansson’s The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My. It was both a personal and an honorable commission, rooted in a story that had followed him since childhood and now became a new opportunity to explore marquetry as a narrative craft.
The cabinet brings Jansson’s expressive imagery into wood through carefully composed marquetry in both natural and colored veneers. Every detail is built from wood, from the characters and landscapes to the smallest visual accents. As in Black Box, Jonte has treated the cabinet as more than a functional object: it is a piece that opens into a story. Even the key has been chosen and customized with care – a classic Finnish Abloy key.
During the summer of 2026, Jonte is also one of the featured craftspeople in Tormek’s art exhibition Behind the Edge, where visitors will have the opportunity to see Black Box in person. For a piece built around discovery, movement, and hidden details, seeing it up close adds another dimension.
You can follow Jonte and his upcoming projects on Instagram @jontehantverk External link, opens in new window.
The jury's motivation
At first glance, the mysterious cabinet Black Box immediately sparks the viewer’s curiosity. There is something deeply fascinating about furniture that conceals treasures and holds more than first meets the eye. Black Box is precisely such a piece – behind its black exterior, it opens with mechanical ingenuity and unfolds magnificently before the viewer. In this creation, Jonte Ramsten has, with a sharp mind, sharp tools, an exceptional eye for detail, and great creativity and inventiveness, created a piece of furniture that quite literally unfolds into an entire performance.
Henrik Björkman
Jury member for Tormek Scholarship
