Rayah Wauters began with a mistake. At the lathe, the chisel slipped from its intended path — what came out was not a failure, but a technique. Hair-like fibres, freed from solid wood. She stopped the machine, looked, and started it again.

That single movement grew into four years of research. Wauters holds a master’s degree in Interior Design from the University of Hasselt and now works as a wood artist from her studio in Velm (Sint-Truiden). She makes objects in poplar — the most harvested and least valued wood in Belgium — by reshaping traditional chisels and developing a custom tensioning system that allows her to free the fibres from the wood. She then dips the pieces in Indian ink, which follows the grain and the hairs in its own way. She calls it ‘framing the flaws’.

Her partner Niels Arnauts is an arborist. What he prunes, she opens.

In 2024 her work was included in Please do touch at Z33, Hasselt. In 2026 she was selected as one of thirty finalists for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, from more than 5,100 entries across 133 countries — the only Belgian. Her work A Turn Toward Possibility was on display at the National Gallery Singapore from 13 May to 14 June. In June 2026 NUMMER18 in Hasselt shows her first solo exhibition: Fragments of a Process.

Alongside her artistic practice, Wauters makes hand-turned wooden urns through Atelier NAUWAU. She is also co-founder of Timbr.app.