Hélène de Saint Lager is a French artist and sculptor, based in Paris, who is particularly known for her furniture made of resin. This trio of Petite Fleur Tables are a perfect exmaple of her works, of which no two are alike. A Saint Lager table is typically made over the course of a week, using a hollowed-out bed of sand. The artist forms that hollow to represent the mass of the table when it is filled. A canvas sheet then lines the void before Saint Leger pours a layer of resin a couple of inches deep onto it. Her next task is to decide how industrial dyes lend effects of opacity or transparency, depth or brilliance.
Eye on Design: Petite Fleur Tables by Hélène de Saint Lager
March 12, 2018
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FEATURED & RELATED ARTWORKS
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FEATURED ARTIST
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Hélène de Saint Lager
Hélène de Saint Lager is a sculptor based in Paris, known for her distinctive pieces made from poured aluminum and polyester resin. Having studied art history at the Louvre School and worked previously in restoration, casting, metalwork, and millinery, her approach melds functionality with a painterly approach to color and form to produce her lively and surrealistic creations. In her home workshop in Ivry-sur-Seine just outside of Paris, de Saint Lager creates her crystalline resin works, which shimmer with iridescent colors and inclusions that range from metallic paper cuttings to objects such as flowers and tiny multicolored Eiffel Tower replicas, a cheeky touch that exemplifies the artist’s lighthearted and refreshingly un-self serious approach. Unafraid to engage a broad palette of forms, finishes, and stylistic diversions, her work comprises light fixtures, tables, chairs, mirrors and sculpture works that are dreamlike and plasmic, at times congealing into an alien camp aesthetic. Her fantastical bronze and aluminum furniture are made with the assistance of a metal caster and retain the signature of their liquefaction, lending a sense of lavish exuberance and delightful disequilibrium. For those bold enough to embrace them, de Saint Lager’s pieces reward the senses with their warmth, richness of materials, and luxurious abundance of color and shapes. De Saint Lager’s artistic methodology is rooted in her breadth of experience in the worlds of art and design, and her work retains a diaphanous aura all its own, while conjuring a host of visual associations and predecessors such as Fauvism, science fiction films, and assemblage art. She has been sought out by the world’s top designers including Jacques Garcia, who has commissioned her work for Schiaparelli and Hotel La Réserve in Paris, L’Institution in Lyon, and Maison Vougeot; as well as architect Peter Marino, who has placed her tables in Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior boutiques in London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Seoul.
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