Ross is currently undertaking postgraduate design studies, examining design for batch production using timber bending technologies.

Ross works with timbers sourced from sustainably managed resources, with small sections of timber using minimal forms, and with experimental techniques using plantation timbers.

Together with his partner Dr Tamsin Kerr, Ross has established the Cooroora Institute, which brings together artists and artisans with public intellectuals to celebrate, promote and discuss community connectedness to place and environment.

Previously, Ross studied zoology and the philosophy of science, and worked in academia and in health information computer systems development.

Exhibitions and awards

• 2010 forthcoming Sitting Pretty, Crafthaus, USA

• 2010 forthcoming Eco-regional Story, Gympie Regional Gallery

• 2010 Winner Australia Day Creative Award, Sunshine Coast Regional Council

• 2010 Bug Eyed Gympie Regional Gallery

• 2009 Wood as Art - featuring Tables, Crafthaus, USA

• 2009 Travelling Scholarship Noosa Reg Gallery

• 2009 Five Senses QLD State Library

• 2008 Holzdesign Australien: Wissenschaft im Atelier. Handwerkskammer Rheinhessen, Mainz, Germany

• 2008 Art of the Chair Noosa Regional Gallery

• 2008 Studio Furniture 2008 Bungendore Woodworks

• 2007 Travelling Scholarship Noosa Regional Gallery

• 2006 Chainsaw to Fine Furniture Maleny

• 2005 Please be seated.... again Bungendore Wood Works Gallery

• 2005 Chainsaw to Fine Furniture Maleny

• 2004 Please be Seated, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery

• 2004 Australian Wood Review Fine Woodwork Awards Open Award Winner

• 2004 Contemporary Furniture Exhibition Cooroy

• 2004 Collectables Craft QLD, Brisbane

• 2004 Chainsaw to Fine Furniture Maleny

• 2003 Elemental One, Noosa Regional Gallery

• 2003 Sound Builders, QBFM Cooroy

• 2003 Chainsaw to Fine Furniture Maleny

• 2002 Contemporary Furniture Exhibition Cooroy Winner Craftsmanship Award

• 2002 Twenty First Century Chair Brisbane City Gallery

• 2002 Collected: Uncovering the Passion Craft QLD

• 2002 Big Blue Shed, Noosa Long Weekend

• 2002 Chainsaw to Fine Furniture Maleny

• 2001 Contemporary Furniture Exhibition Cooroy

• 2001 Chainsaw to Fine Furniture Maleny

• 2001 Infestation Craft Queensland

• 2001 QCL Regional Arts Award, Logan City Gallery Winner 3 dimensional category

• 2001 Dialogue Cooroy.

Professional affiliations & Community Involvement

2004-10 Member, Furniture Society

2002-2010 Professional member, Vic Woodworkers Association

2004-6 President, Craft QLD

2003-4 Board Member, Craft QLD.

2000-2006 Steering Committee, Contemporary Furniture Exhibition

2000-2007 Executive member, Cooroy Task Force

2001-2002 Board Member, Arts and Heritage Board, Noosa Council

2000-2001 Vice President, Cooroy Butter Factory Association

Grants, Events and Media

• 2009 Kerr, T and Annels, R Memory keepers, map makers and material thinkers: the sustained offerings of craft objects Making Futures: The Crafts in the context of emerging global sustainability agendas. Plymouth College of Art, UK.

• 2009 Invited participant – Collaboration 2009. NSW

• 2009 Kerr, T and Annels, R The Contemporary Design of Ross Annels Cooroora Institute.

• 2008 Nutt, Craig. 500 Chairs: Celebrating Traditional & Innovative Designs Lark Books, New York.

• 2008 Erasmus, Neil. Studio Furniture 2008. Australian Wood Review 58:34

• 2008 Kerr, T. If I say I love my place, what’s with the bags I’ve packed? The cultural changes required by landscape memoir and eco-regionalism pp 5-8 Art Monthly Australia 214: 5-8,

• 2007 Floating Land artists workshops, Noosa

• 2007 Invited participant – Collaboration 2007. NSW

• 2004 Invited panelist – Queensland Design Futures

• 2003 Invited participant – Collaboration 2003. NSW

• 2003 ArtsQld Prof. Development Grant to investigate and develop Steam Bending Techniques 2003

• 2002 RADF Prof. Development Grant to travel to Perth WA for Designing Futures Forum

Current/Recent Projects

• Invited Participant in design competition for Ton Furniture, Czech Republic

• Development of Cooroora Institute program including performances, workshops and artists residencies

• Butterfly Table, mayoral offices, Sunshine Coast Regional Council

• Floating Land project worker

• In Silent Stillness writing desk and chair, private collection, Pt Arkwright

• Mayrah's Chairs, collaboration with indigenous artist Mayrah Yarraga

• Bent Bench, Caloundra City Council

• Brazel display table, for Bungendore Woodworks

• Cato Cases, Noosa Council

• Executive Desk, ISA, Gold Coast

• Bookshop furniture, National Library of Australia

• Echinoid chair, private collection, Brisbane

• Sapling chairs, private collection, Sydney

• Reception Desk, Cooloola Regional Gallery,QLD.

• Curvature Sunlounger for Rivergum Furniture.

• Dining furniture for residences in Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and United States of America.

Buying handmade furniture is unlike most other purchases we make in contemporary society.

You are engaging in a transaction where the focus is on great design, on high-quality sustainably sourced materials, on skilled work using craft processes, and a relationship with Ross and his studio community. Of course working in this way takes time, the furniture equivalent of "slow food".

The fine furniture maker is often portrayed as a romantic solitary genius - toiling away by themselves in a dusty studio.

But in a successful craft practice it is rarely really like that. Our studio is a busy creative place with many people coming and going, working here as designers and makers, as students and interns, researchers and writers, visitors, musicians and supporters.

Here are just a few of those who have been involved.

Noosa and surrounds, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, is one of Australia's most beautiful locations. These images convey some of the elements from the area that inspire my work

Ross is a designer and maker of contemporary fine furniture, specialising in chairs, carefully crafted to fit the body and to enhance modern and traditional interiors. Ross designs and makes furniture to order and by commission for Australian and international clients, combining traditional fine furniture making with innovative contemporary design. Ross lives and works outside Cooroy, near Noosa, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, Queensland, Australia.