Couleur Exhibition

Part of Oui Design at WantedDesign Brooklyn 2018

©Véronique Huygue and Pernelle Poyet

At WantedDesign Brooklyn (May 18-21, 2018), WantedDesign co-founders Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat present the vision of three emerging French designers: Julie Richoz, Ionna Vautrin, Pernelle Poyet and the role of color in their work. Color can be the starting point, the inspiration, and the final touch in the design process, therefore, color revisits, transforms, highlights, defines a shape, a line, a mood, a message. Color is a language and a sensible and emotional tool. This exhibition will display a selection of pieces by these three designers, all based around an original and inspiring color palette while giving visitors an opportunity to discover three French rising talents and their sensible exploration of color, its role in the creative process and how it connects with its perception when applied to different materials and textures.

New York–based exhibition designer STUDIO M NY will design the Couleur Exhibition.

Ionna Vautrin

After graduating from l’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique in 2002, Ionna Vautrin has worked successively for Camper in Spain, for George J. Sowden in Italy and for Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec in France. She opened her own studio in January 2011 after receiving the Grand Prize of Creation of the City of Paris. She collaborates with different brands like Foscarini, Moustache, Kvadrat, Christian Dior, Sancal, Lexon, Serralunga, SNCF and JCDecau. Her work is a meeting point between industry and poetry. She draws daily objects with the ambition to be simple and obvious but still surprising. These projects offer a gentle and generous presence, organic and geometric shapes, a cheerful and colorful spirit, an intuitive and functional usage.

“Color is an exciting and infinite topic! The symbol of colors according to each culture tells a context, an era, a technique, a civilization, beliefs… Color plays an important role in my designs. It can give a very different character to the objects according to whether it is bright or dark, alive or extinct, hot or cold … Color makes it possible to tell stories and gives purposes to objects. Black and white are also two important colors for me as because they are bold and graphic. But a monochrome is always accompanied by a set of very happy and fun colors to balance the neutral. The color makes the objects enticing like a delicious pastry.”

Pernelle Poyet

A graduate from ENSCI Les Ateliers, in the summer of 2016 Pernelle Poyet exhibited the project Alphabet at Design Parade, Villa Noailles in Hyeres. “Alphabet” evoked a desire to create the foundation of a language, or narratives, through the heightened creation of prototypes. The project won the “Grand Prix” and Public Prize of Design Parade 11. Thanks to this award, Pernelle Poyet had a solo exhibit the following year at Villa Noailles, presenting “Figurés”, the result of her residency at the experimental glass center Centre international de recherche sur le verre et les arts plastiques (CIRVA), in Marseille and  the Manufacture de Sèvres, in partnership with Gallery Kreo.

Since Alphabet, she pursued her experimental work on different materials and different scales, “To further explore the idea of “product language”, the idea of color, the transcript of the different steps we need to design an object (from our mind to the final product) or the use of traditional handicrafts diverted from their original purposes.”

Julie Richoz

Julie Richoz  is a Swiss-French designer. After graduating from ECAL, Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, she started working for Pierre Charpin as a project assistant. In 2012 she set up her design studio in Paris where she enjoys with curiosity and sensibility developing her own language through objects.

Richoz has won the “Grand Prix” at Design Parade 2012 at the Villa Noailles. She was a designer-in-residency at Sèvres, Cite de la céramique, as well as at the CIRVA, Centre International de Recherche sur le Verre et les Arts plastiques in Marseille, where she was given the chance to explore the materials and the savoir-faire behind them. Besides her gallery work she collaborates with companies such as Alessi, Artecnica, Louis Poulsen and more recently Louis Vuitton. In 2015, she received a Swiss Design Award, which is the Switzerland’s leading national design competition organized annually by the FOC (Federal Office of Culture) since 1918.

Her passion for color is reflected in her work . “For me colors are both powerful and stimulating. It is not the last layer to be added on the surface. It is just as important as material, shape or function. I can easily start a project only based on how colors resonate together.”

In partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and its partner Foundation FACE

Launched in 2016, OUI Design aims to foster creative exchange in design between France and the U.S. It is the first program initiated by the French Embassy to support fruitful and durable partnerships between design professionals on both sides of the Atlantic.

WantedDesign will be again a main partner for the third edition of Oui Design. Through a diverse program comprised of workshops, exhibitions, and talks, Oui Design will feature collaborative projects exploring new modes of production, at the intersection of design, art, and crafts.