Reclaiming the significance of decoration

Everyday Ornament emphasize the fact that that de­co­ra­tion re­mains impor­tant to high­light the singu­larity of an ob­ject, our way of life and our history. Memory is an incre­dible tool to under­stand our con­tem­po­rary aes­the­tics, revea­ling po­li­ti­cal, cul­tu­ral and so­cial mo­tives when we peel back the his­to­ric layers of these art movements. Less is more has itself be­come a con­ceit of the upper classes.

My pur­pose is to strive to uncover, reveal and re-introduce the or­na­ment, using the prac­tice of de­tail making, of ad­ding more as a way to pick and trick the dis­courses built by high social classes. There are two di­men­sions to the ins­tal­lation presented. First is an ap­pre­ciation of his­toric decor­ation through a range of ce­ramic objects like stools and vases. Ceramics are like his­to­ry: made from the Earth, baked to be­come strong and fra­gile to sud­den shocks. The his­to­ry shown here is that of or­na­men­ta­tion in Western cul­ture, and how abun­dance and scar­city come to re­pre­sent shif­ting values through dif­ferent eras. The second di­men­sion is the mate­ria­li­zation of my drawings, which is the pre­dominant process in my practice. I used automatic drawing to re­inter­pret my con­nection with ornament.

I’m con­vinced that decor needs to exist. As a de­signer, il­lustrator and art­ist, ornament is a way to give a spe­cial value to objects.

Master Thesis

A Small Encyclopedia of Layers classifies by al­pha­be­ti­cal or­der a range of items that all have in com­mon a pee­ling system. Here re­fe­rences are not limited. In fact, they are a way to cross layers of the past, to cre­ate bridges be­tween dif­fe­rent uni­verses in or­der to let you to com­pose your own recipe.
My goal is to in­trigue you as much as I was se­du­ced by the know­ledge I dis­co­ve­red myself. The en­cy­clo­pe­dia is a game and a peeling tool: I say ‘peel’ to imply the action (physical or symbolic) of removing something from a layer piece by piece.
I use this form to invite you to dive into my fa­vou­rite themes and references. I welcome you into a world fil­led with strata, dead­locks and surprises. Every­thing is clas­si­fied, stacked, as­si­mi­lated. Every­thing has to be peeled to be revealed.

Participation to the contest for Monnaie de Paris prize in collaboration with Riwan Coeffic

@internautes is a me­dal in honor of every­one who com­poses the in­ter­net com­munity. Every ano­ny­mous and un­de­fi­ned en­ti­ty who nou­rishes and em­bo­dies the Cyberculture.
It’s spin­ning corner re­fers to the fresh 30th Internet’s birthday. Each sym­bole re­pre­sents a strong mo­ment and de­fines the Web’s birth to these days. To the first com­pu­ter mouse to the last meme which made us laugh…

This pro­ject hasn’t been selected.

A Scene at the Seine is a short mo vie ins pi red by my own drawing pro cess. It re veals how I get deep into the nar ra tives that I’m drawing. Through a fan ta sist il lus tra tion of the Seine ri ver, I tra vel through times, high ligh ting the im por tance of the his to ri cal layers in the ci ty of Rouen and in my mind.

This is a drinking foun­tain, ins­pi­red by my re­search work on the his­to­ry of tap water.
I pro­pose to re­vi­sit im­por­tant and at­trac­tive as­pects of de­co­ra­tive foun­tains, that were built thanks to clas­si­cism, and the gol­den age of French foun­tains in the XVII century. Refer­ring to an an­cient style is a way to com­pare it to the mo­der­nism and ef­fi­ciency that cha­rac­te­rises our con­tem­po­rary pu­blic spaces and fountains. Take time to look at the gran­diose archi­tec­ture of rail­way sta­tions, as well as foun­tains, which give plea­sure to the com­munity…

With Matilde Patuelli and Matilde Losi

This is a col­la­bo­ra­tive pro­ject that aims for a re­flexion about the ISS and bor­ders in space. It’s di­vi­ded into a sce­no­gra­phy space, a pu­bli­ca­tion and a se­ries of short movies.
ISS con­fines the actual live­­abl­e di­men­sion for hu­man beings in the outer space, which is roughly as big as a foot­ball field. Yes, very big in case it was your apartment, but think about spen­ding from 3 to 6 months up there – all your rou­tine hap­pening wi­thin the same perimeter.
This ins­tal­lation gives an over­view of the stakes that imp­lies a life in space, as well as the po­li­ti­cal im­pacts that it hides.

This is a se­ries of tapes­tries and samples that I de­signed from my own drawings. This was one of my first op­por­tunities to be­come more fa­miliar with a loom and other weaving tech­niques.

This is a sur­prise vase. Under the mul­tiple layers of alu­mi­nium foil, every­one thinks there is some­thing in­side. We have to peel it and wrinkle it, on­ly to fi­nal­ly dis­co­ver that it is emp­ty. Bran­ding and packaging are ex­tre­me­ly well built: each sto­ry that a com­pa­ny gives to a pro­­duct are sel­ling tech­niques.
I’m ma­king a fake bran­ding sys­tem which pro­mises a guil­ty plea­sure, a chea­ting sur­prise… I’m playing with the kin­der sur­prise egg and the Greek vase. They both are multi-layered ob­jects that you can peel. Through fake an­tic nar­ra­tives that ap­pear throughout the alu­mi­nium sheets, I want to push the con­su­mer to peel it to the end.

With Riwan Coëffic

“I love water, in twenty, thirty years, it will be gone” Jean‑Claude Van Damme.

These are vases, aquariums, in twenty, thirty years, we will not make any of those anymore.
As de­signers, it is dif­ficult to admit that we make beau­tiful things for plea­sure. Here, we chose to comvbine tiles and water be­cause they fit well together.

Why do we have this ten­dency to ac­cu­mu­late ob­jects which show how strong and power­ful we are? Cars, watches, wea­pons, even jack­hammers, what is it about these appliances? In the 1960’s, Moulinex “made the wo­man free”: could kit­chen ap­pli­ances be a new iro­nic sym­bol of strength?
I’m working on the idea of po­wer rai­sed by the hy­per func­tio­na­lism of our sur­roun­ding objects. Turning them into non­sense is a way to show how we need for ap­pro­val with our belongings. These ab­surd mons­ters are the new sym­bols of the hu­man power. How many func­tions, what size could we en­hance to ac­cess to the higher point of virility? Stronger Bigger Faster in­vites you to try a range of new pro­duct for a power­ful ex­pe­rience in the ki­tchen…

Every week I’ve made a news­pa­per and I’ve kept this prac­tice for three months. That was my only rule to play around, and con­nect drawings from my child­hood to cur­rent topics.

Hot wa­ter bot­tle and sli­pper: ex­pe­ri­ments with quilt and padding.

This is a stool that I’ve made.
Steel, velvet, rope.

With Rosalie Blanc

A col­lec­tion of hand­made soaps for the Saint‑Etienne Design Biennial, sold at the sou­venir shop.