inside léa mestres’creative design world
In Léa Mestres’ universe, lamps become landscapes, benches resemble dreamlike animals, and mosaics shape painted skies. The French artist and designer has actually constructed a practice around humor, instinct, and irreverence, pushing back against what she views as an extremely severe, and often overly manly, style culture. Her latest exhibit, Small Automobile, Huge Windows, presented alongside Martin Laforêt at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London, continues that pursuit through a collection of lighting, seating, and sculptural furniture motivated by long drives between Paris and Brittany, where moving views of northern France become imagined landscapes.
References to Antoni Gaudí, René Magritte, Windows XP’s renowned Happiness wallpaper, and Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton runway appear alongside handmade mosaics and her signature mineral plaster, producing works that oscillate in between memory, dream, and the everyday. Talking with designboom, Mestres reflects on why play remains central to her practice, how intuition drives every job, and why making people smile is still her measure of success. ‘When I’m making an item, I need to have fun. If I’m not enjoying the process, then the outcome is never ever good. If something I develop can make people smile, then I feel I have actually done a good task,’ the designer informs us.
Throughout her profession, Mestres has actually described her work as a reaction to a style culture that typically advantages severity over spontaneity. Today, she extends that resistance beyond style itself. ‘Play is my little type of resistance, not only against the style world, however versus the world in basic,’ Mestres says. ‘It uses another way of thinking, one that feels freer, lighter, and more open.’
all images by Tom Carter, unless mentioned otherwise little automobile, huge windows: northern France as imagined landscape This mindset runs throughout Little Cars and truck, Big Windows. While Martin Laforêt equates motorway bridges, industrial structures, and concrete landscapes into restrained sculptural furnishings, Léa Mestres approaches the same journeys through imagination. The exhibition takes its title from hours invested taking a trip across northern France, where motion ended up being an imaginative framework.
‘The moving landscape was the beginning point for the collection,’ the French designer discusses. ‘While making the first light, I discovered myself drawn to classic references such as the Windows XP wallpaper Bliss, paintings by René Magritte, and Virgil Abloh’s show for Louis Vuitton– the one including the sky. All of these recommendations led me towards transforming truth into an envisioned world.’
this freestanding mosaic light turns a grass-and-cloud landscape into light building landscapes, one tile at a time That envisioned world comes to life through mosaic. Throughout big lighting sculptures, benches, and lamps, pieces of colored glass placed one beside another shape grassy fields underneath expansive skies, creating surface areas that operate like paintings assembled piece by piece. The recommendations are clear, however Mestres makes the technique her own through slow, hand-cutting each piece of glass into painterly compositions. ‘I have constantly been captivated by the mosaics of Antoni Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner, and Niki de Saint Phalle,’ she shows us. ‘I enjoy spending hours cutting glass tiles piece by piece and enjoying the “painting” gradually come to life.’
For Léa Mestres, the tourist attraction extends beyond workmanship, as mosaic opens new possibilities for where her work can exist. ‘I’m interested in producing works that can exist both inside your home and outdoors. The outdoor environment is something I want to check out more, developing a fictional landscape within a real one.’
all-over grass pattern covers the light where function fulfills fiction Although her things often appear playful enough to be misinterpreted for sculpture alone, energy remains inseparable from her practice. Lamps still light up; benches stay locations to sit.’My objective is constantly to develop something I have actually imagined and bring it as close as possible to reality. When I manage to do that, I feel satisfied. Both functionality and sculpture are vital to my practice– I can’t separate them. Instead, I attempt to bring them together in a manner that feels real to my own method,’ she comments.
Narrative plays a similarly connective role in Mestres’ works. The pieces carry names or personalities, appearing as imaginary characters occupying the exact same universe. ‘Narrative helps me create context for the work and find a sense of unity within a collection. It offers each piece a location within a larger story,’ Léa Mestres highlights.
close-up of the lamp’s rough, hand-worked blue-and-white surface intuition, imperfection, and the next piece That instinctive technique likewise shapes the way she works. The ended up pieces may appear meticulously composed, though their origins are often instant and obsessive, less driven by preparing than by intuition.’ Intuition is whatever,’she shares with designboom. ‘I follow my instinct totally. When I have an idea, I become fixated on it up until I make it happen. It can be a little obsessive, actually.’
This focus on impulse is visible in the exhibit’s Yearning for Crépi works, where Mestres welcomes uneven textures, imperfect types, and spontaneous color mixes. The works commemorate experimentation as a method, accepting imperfection as part of each object’s identity.
Despite the exhibition’s extensive landscapes and envisioned horizons, Mestres is already looking beyond them. Asked what inhabits her ideas after Small Vehicle, Big Windows, her answer is noticeably succinct. ‘The next piece!’
individually cut glass tiles compose the mosaic surface
Mestres established her signature lélélite
plaster to celebrate texture, imperfection, and spontaneity the mosaic structure remembers the artist’s imagined landscapes
a brand-new light dressed in Mestres’ signature mineral-based plaster, lélélite the textured lighting piece remembers blue skies and drifting clouds close-up of the light’s textured lélélite surface a sculptural bench clad in hand-cut mosaic tiles the piece illustrates clouds and grassy fields