LONDON.- In a new exhibition titled Small Car, Big Windows, French artists and designers Martin Laforêt and Léa Mestres reflect on how perspectives and observations are shaped by journeys and movements through shifting landscapes. While both maintain separate, individual practices, this exhibition at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London brings them into a shared, collaborative dialogue, with new works of sculptural design – including tables, seating and lighting pieces – that provide a personal look into the designers’ current way of life and how it shapes their creativity.
Often moving between living in Paris and working in Brittany, Laforêt and Mestres observe the changing landscape of northern France, from the harsh concrete of the built urban environment to the natural shapes and colours of the countryside. The designers’ new collections echo the continual transitions between these two oppositional states as experienced in contemporary living, evoking the paradoxes, contrasts and shifts in mood felt by many today. The title of the exhibition alludes to the relational balance between one’s vantage point and that which is viewed, reflecting how experience is formed by perspective.
Drawn to objects related to the fields of sculpture, industry and architecture, Laforêt has developed a personal expression inspired by his interest in shapes and material combinations. His sculptures are architecturally structured and thoughtfully designed as original arrangements of materials like bronze, concrete, oak and plywood.
For this exhibition, Laforêt presents new functional pieces inspired by scenes of industrialised landscapes. A blue and grey-green concrete desk with steel legs draws from the artist's view of a vast motorway bridge, of which he produced an abstract drawing. The sculpture captures the essence of this perspective in three-dimensional form, while a matching console echoes the same dimensional spirit as the desk, sculpted in grey concrete. For an intuitively crafted series of coffee tables, Laforêt mixed coloured concrete to create a dappled white and blue colour effect – a process that he sees as painting with concrete.
Mestres is known for countering a design world that she sees as too serious, drawing inspiration from idiosyncratic, stylised and irreverent approaches that generate unrestrained expression. The experimental artist uses play, humour and whimsy as aesthetic devices to create colourful sculptures that act as windows into her vivid imagination.
For this exhibition, Mestres presents a new large-scale lighting sculpture featuring the artist’s use of mosaic tiles to create vivid impressions of the natural world, with colours and patterns that recall green, grassy fields under clouds floating through blue skies. The same mosaic technique is seen in two matching smaller lamps, as well as a new sculptural bench. Two other medium-sized lighting pieces continue Mestres’ Craving for Crépi collection, made with her own trademark mineral-based plaster, called lélélite. The works celebrate imperfection and freedom through their experimental approach to texture, size and colour.
A collaborative work co-created by both Laforêt and Mestres sees both designers merge their styles and artistic approaches to produce an original new creation, completing this exhibition at Carpenters Workshop Gallery that places two distinct but complementary artists side-by-side. With straight lines and sharp angles, the seating piece is sculpted in the style of many of Laforêt’s chairs, inspired by movements such as Arte Povera and Brutalism, while the effect in its brightly painted, mosaiced surface is a product of Mestres’ distinctive ability with organic shapes, tactile surfaces and vivid colours.
Léa Mestres is an experimental French artist who seeks to counter a design world that she sees as too serious and too male-dominated. She uses play, humour and whimsy as aesthetic devices to create colourful, anthropomorphic, larger-than-life sculptures that act as windows into the artist’s vivid imagination.
Martin Laforêt is a French designer based between Paris and Audierne who aims to bring out the specific personality of materials and produce original forms. Drawn to objects related to the fields of sculpture, industry and architecture, his personal expression is inspired by his interest in shapes and material combinations.
