So why, I ask myself, haven’t I ever before heard of zelouf + BELL, the duo made up of Ireland’s Michael Bell and America’s Susan Zelouf who–along with a carefully-chosen team of master cabinetmakers–have been hand-crafting innovative and stylish one-off pieces and assorted commissions of “warm contemporary furniture from their workshop on a dirt road in the midlands of Ireland since 1992”? Probably because this is the first time I started at the “Zees.”

Black Mamba Table. Designed by Michael Bell and Susan Zelouf of zelouf + BELL.

Tasked with choosing a product to profile from the forthcoming AD Home Design Show, I forewent my usual alphabetic bias and began at the bottom side of the exhibitor list. Good for me and good for us all (especially American consumers), for I suspect compatriots zelouf + BELL are somewhat under-represented in the state-side A&D scene. The low profile says nothing about the aesthetic panache of the goods, believe me, especially when they’ve got the likes of the sexy, sinuous, and strange Black Mamba table at their disposal.

You’ll remember from the dubious wisdom of Daryl Hannah’s Elle Driver in Kill Bill that the Black Mamba is the deadliest of vipers: “The venom of a black mamba can kill a human in four hours, if, say, bitten on the ankle or the thumb. However, a bite to the face or torso can bring death from paralysis within 20 minutes.” That bit of information might come in handy while in audience with zelouf + BELL’s piece of ebonised cherry with polished aluminum, part of their Back to Black collection: a selection of “contemporary classics in wenge, walnut, macassar ebony, platinum, polished aluminium and stylish modern marquetry in natural and dyed woods.” Black Mamba is one of those pieces sure to provoke, for better or worse. Perched on a pedestal that could pass for a polished stone or carbonized stump, the spine of the piece looks like, well, a spine, or the coiled body of the table’s namesake, furious, spitting venom, ready to strike, until it meets its benign terminus in an asynchronous table top. This “headless” aspect is a bit anti-climactic (it seems as if the deadly snake in question has already lost its head), but, even so, the piece has a futurist aesthetic that can only be called dangerous–what could be more apropos?