UNTOLD INTENT: Works by Keita Design

​Untold Intent is an exploration of the spiritual and material transformation of what has been cast aside. Drawing inspiration from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1847 poem “Give All to Love,” Gallery 945 presents a collection of handcrafted furniture and sculptural forms that challenges our modern devotion to “half-gods” – convenience and mass-produced, disposable design.

​Emerson urged us to release attachment to the familiar in order to make space for something more divine. In this spirit, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider high-volume consumption and rediscover the “untold intent” embedded within the natural world. Each bench, table, and carved form becomes a gesture of return — away from the ephemeral and toward the enduring.

​Works by Keita Designs are born from the urban forest: fallen trees and salvaged timber reclaimed from across the Los Angeles region. Rather than impose uniformity, Keita’s process reveals the raw grain, knots, and inherent geometries of each piece of wood. What is typically discarded becomes an object of permanence and reverence — proof that beauty and the divine cannot be manufactured, only uncovered.

Keita Design: a Los Angeles–based furniture studio that builds custom pieces from salvaged urban hardwoods. The team combines digital fabrication tools with traditional woodworking techniques, allowing the natural characteristics of each material to inform the final design.