“I can’t decide where I want to sit and have coffee because it’s so nice,” the owner says.
When a pair of Miami art collectors bought a pied-à-terre on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, they wanted a home where they could reside among their works—including pieces by Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí, and Alex Katz—without feeling as though they were inhabiting a museum. They turned to ELLE DECOR A-List Titan Kelly Behun to fashion comfortable interiors around their striking collection.
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.
* denotes required fields
Change your preferences or unsubscribe using the link in our emails. Privacy Policy.
