- Art & Design
Florence Louisy creates highly meaningful pieces through her use of materials and techniques. Her vision of design was further developed when she travelled to Brazil, and now she continues her journey in the field of collective design, where furniture is sculpture and materiality is like history.
The French designer graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven and was taught by the greatest designers such as Ilse Crawford and Formafantasma. Thanks also to the experience gained in Brazil, she discovered her particular fondness for monolithic volumes. In her opinion, they reflect the beauty of raw materials. ‘I like balancing the design with curves and sharp lines until I reach the point where I can describe them as bodies,’ she says. Louisy often works with bronze, brass, stainless steel, wood, cotton, linen, jute and marble. Aequō was founded by Tarini Jindal Handa and creative director Florence Louisy, who met by chance in Paris about two years ago. Louisy immersed herself in Indian crafts, and under the vision of Handa, Aequō was born. The designer wants to unite designers from abroad and introduce them to the Indian craft heritage. The gallery is a perfect match for Florence Louisy's design style, as the monolithic and sculptural aspect of each piece is reflected in this space. 'When stepping into the æquō, three actors with equal fascination immediately stand out. This is how materials, makers and designers meet,' we hear. By developing a deliberate choice of furniture and interior objects that emphasise this very intersection, æquō is the very first Indian gallery dedicated to contemporary collective design. 'In my opinion, India has the most invented crafts in the world, which makes it a great playground for any designer. Each region of India represents a specific craft, simply because each region offers a different raw material to work with,' she tells us.
India is an amazing playground for any designer
In addition, the debut exhibition of æquō shows the brilliant work of Florence Louisy herself. In these creations, Louisy explores how objects can retain beauty and depth. Using a contemporary and formal language, the designer pays tribute to the purity that remains after Indian materials are shaped. Her collections include brass and silver-plated tables made in Jaipur, sculptural bronze pieces cast in Mumbai, hand-sculpted marble lamps made in Makrana, curved oak furniture built in Mysore, and linen rugs hand-knitted in Uttar Pradesh; to name but a few.
For the future, many new collaborations with designers are planned. 'This first exhibition was just a glimpse of possibilities.’ She also confides that there are plans to organise a group exhibition in Europe. If India is too far away to see Florence Louisy's work, Europe will soon be the place to be. Images courtesy of Florence Louisy