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Sarah Martinon, lines and colours for a living

She is the designer of The Socialite Family’s latest collaboration in the form of a tapestry and a pair of curtains depicting an imaginary landscape: Il cielo in una stanza, is a whimsical, dreamy interpretation of the childhood memories of Constance Gennari, founder and artistic director of the brand. We took advantage of the opportunity to open the door to the Parisian apartment of designer and graphic artist Sarah Martinon. She and her family have made their home in an Art Deco oasis in the heart of a bustling district of Paris. A family home, but not just that: the dining room, lined with bookcases full of books, is her office. Walking into the living room, you are greeted by her partner’s collection of vinyl records, while a passion for vintage lighting, mainly from the 1970s and 1980s, is evident here and there in every room. We talked about career paths and projects, inspirations – of which there are many – and work. In the course of our conversation, we touched on just about every artistic movement of the late 19th century, some of the great names in illustration and artistically designed books, the psychedelia of the 1970s, a passion for science fiction and a grandfather’s paperbacks. So you leave with your mind brimming with colour.

Location

Paris

Author

Elsa Cau

Photos and videos

Jeanne Perrotte, Constance Gennari

TSF

Sarah, please introduce yourself.

Sarah

I’m an illustrator and graphic designer. I have two daughters, Ava, who’s six and a half, and Rivka, who’s one. I studied applied arts, and after that, I worked with another graphic designer for a few years before continuing my career on my own, which is what I’ve done since the birth of my first daughter in 2017. I drew and painted throughout my childhood, and I missed it during the first years of my career. So I found a way, you might say, of reintegrating it into my day-to-day practice, initially through designing motifs. I worked for makers, fashion brands and interior designers. I wanted to create even stronger identities for them by offering them the opportunity to insert drawings or create original motifs for collections or colour schemes for specific projects. And it caught on very quickly. I’m thinking of Johanna Senyk, whom I met when she started her first label, Wanda Nylon and who then asked me to design the prints for her Françoise collection. I also design a fair few artistic coffee table books, exhibition catalogues, artists’ monographs, and typefaces.

TSF

Can you tell us about a few projects that have stood out in your career?

Sarah

In 2019, Gallimard asked me to design the artwork for the illustrated reissue of À Rebours, the novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans, published to coincide with the Joris-Karl Huysmans critique d’art exhibition, curated by Stéphane Guégan and André Guyaux and co-produced with the Musée d’Orsay. It’s a novel that’s been significant for me for a long time, and I was absolutely delighted. In an attempt to convey the highly atmospheric spirit of the book, the heady, highly charged world meticulously conceived by Des Esseintes (the main character), I suggested making the iconography denser by drawing faux marbled, voluptuous, psychedelic papers for the covers and chapter headings. The chapter openers (Nostra,  by Lucas Descroix) are also almost more a matter of drawing than typography. It was a unique opportunity to incorporate my designs into a book – I’d never allow myself to do that in an artist’s monograph, for example! Drawing quickly became a practice in its own right and now occupies more than half of my working time. I create patterns for wallpapers and textiles and design panoramic backdrops for architects, among others. At the moment, I’m illustrating all the posters for the Opéra National du Rhin (Strasbourg Opera) in collaboration with Twice Studio, who are creating the visual identity for next season.

Books and records meet and live together here !

TSF

Can you describe the apartment where the four of you, you, your children, and your partner Vincent, live?

Sarah

It’s not only the apartment; it’s the whole place because it’s an integral part of this building with its courtyard, which I think is important. It was built in the 1930s and is deeply rooted in the Art Deco period, which is very much in evidence in the large entrance hall, the courtyard with the pool and its mosaics, the canopies, the ironwork, and the glass lifts. We liked the original layout of the apartment straight away and hardly changed it when we moved in. We did most of the work in the kitchen: the reason we moved was because I work from home and in our old apartment, my office was also our dining room, so it really wasn’t practical. Here, the dining room has become my studio, and our kitchen is large and pleasant enough for dining. We use it a lot; it’s open to the other two rooms and quite central. It’s a real living room. In fact, I often paint there, which is quite something!

TSF

Apart from the kitchen, what other work have you done here?

Sarah

We knocked down the walls of a corridor that snaked throughout the flat to create this kitchen. There isn’t a single corridor left in the apartment. On the other hand, I wanted to keep the feeling of the original apartment as much as possible. Our aim was to try and preserve the design of the living areas, the mouldings, cornices, friezes, original doors, etc. Our additions give the impression that they’ve always been there: that’s the case with the double door between the kitchen and the living room, which we added following the same pattern as all the others, and the vinyl bookcase – we’re overrun with vinyl, it’s my partner’s passion. Books and records meet and live together here – it isn’t original, but it fits in perfectly with the decor.

TSF

What was your intention for the decoration?

Sarah

The funny thing is that I was starting to design a visual identity for Sandrine Sarah Faivre, an interior designer, when we decided to move, and I naturally suggested that she work on this apartment. It was a very interesting interaction; she was my client, and I became hers; we immersed ourselves in each other’s worlds and became great friends. As far as the interior is concerned, we wanted to give a nod to the Art Deco setting without being too literal. Many of the shapes of our decorative items and furniture echo the curves found in the original architecture. The backs of armchairs, for example. We love light fittings: the brass sconces in my office (also in a semi-circle) remind me of earrings. The rounded, recessed pillars echo these shapes in the kitchen, too. We already had several fairly radical pieces before we arrived here. Each light fitting has its own identity here! (Laughs). And when you’re drawing, light is essential… Even my fresco reflects it with its silver motifs. It literally lights up at night when everything in the apartment is switched off, and there’s just one light on!

TSF

Let’s talk about these lights. They seem to occupy a special place in your home.

Sarah

I love this floor lamp in the living room; it’s called Chiara, and it’s a perfect reading light! Mario Bellini wanted to make a floor lamp that was folded from one single piece. It’s a large curved sheet of metal. On my desk, I’ve placed this lamp that I really like, from Kartell. It produces a light that I find incredible, diffused and intense but not blinding. It’s very pleasant when everything in the apartment is completely turned off, and just this lamp is on. So I’ve decided to keep it on my left when I’m working, as I spend most of my time sitting here (I’m right-handed, so I don’t have any shadows cast on my drawing). And just behind my computer is a Sottsass lamp from the 80s that is a reinterpretation of the classic desk lamp. It’s called Pausania. The chandelier in the living room, like the pair of wall lights in my office, reminds me of a chain necklace: I love the system of links. We have lots of other Murano glass lamps, including the chandelier in our bedroom and the bubble glass pendant in the kitchen. I love working with blown glass. There are lots of objects from the 70s and 80s.

TSF

How do you find these pieces?

Sarah

I got many of them online, particularly on eBay. I don’t have a car, so that way, I don’t have to think about getting them home!

TSF

Can you tell me a bit more about your influences and your various references?

Sarah

It’s always complex when you’re up to your neck in it every day, and you’re constantly discovering things… Thinking about it, I keep coming back to Félix Vallotton’s Symbolist landscapes. In fact, they certainly influenced the tapestry I designed for The Socialite Family. I love his landscapes with their hallucinatory colours like those Ernst Ludwig Kirchner used, and I’m sure they’ve had a significant influence on generations of artists. The Nabis and the Fauves also influenced me a great deal through their search for colour and the movement of shapes. In the tapestry, we also find something of the colours Bernard Neville used in his 1970s designs for Liberty, which I often look at. But I love so many other things: decadence, the bizarre, the macabre, horror, a degree of bad taste, too… The atmosphere of the Biba shop in London in the 70s, the colours of Fantasia, Mike Kelley, Mario Bava, Dario Argento in Suspiria and Inferno, all those influences of saturated colours on a black background, strange and impossible, negative… I keep coming back to it. And then, with colour, in my opinion, you always have to go for it, “Try Bad Taste”, said Ballard in Millenium People, even when you think you’re going backwards. I saw these sky blue curtains from The Socialite Family, and it was obvious they belonged here, even though it’s a colour I wouldn’t usually go for. But when I don’t like a colour, I try to think about what’s interesting about it and what other colour or texture could bring it out. And I always end up finding it.

TSF

Did the family environment in which you grew up influence your taste?

Sarah

I spent a good part of my childhood in houses filled with pictures, wallpaper and, above all, books. It certainly fuelled my interest in images… As does my boredom! I’ve always read a lot. I first discovered art in books rather than in museums. Which is undoubtedly the origin of my obsession with the book as an object. That said, now I come to think about it, my father passed his taste for fantasy, science fiction and futurology to me. Poe, Maupassant, Lovecraft, Philipp K. Dick, and J.G. Ballard, among many others, have been long-term obsessions! Many of my drawings are named after Ballard’s short stories… I also remember pinching lots of paperbacks with dated covers from my grandfather. He died quite early in my youth when I was a child. When I went to visit my grandmother, I slept in his old study. I started quietly clearing out his bookshelf a bit at a time. Vienne 1880-1838, the Apocalypse Joyeuse comes from that library, for example (laughs). I chose novels purely by their covers. Pierre Faucheux’s 50s pocketbooks (I discovered his designs for club books a little later). And Massin’s Les Folios Gallimard from the 70s, with the titles in Baskerville font and the illustrated covers. And Alain Le Foll’s for À Rebours (again!), for example. And albums by Harlin Quist and Ruy Vidal.

TSF

What are you up to at the moment?

Sarah

I designed Il Cielo in una stanza for The Socialite Family. I’ve just finished the catalogue for the Les Fleurs d’Yves Saint Laurent exhibition, which opens at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakech and will travel to the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Paris in September. I created a huge 13-metre panoramic piece for the Fish Point restaurant at Galeries Lafayette Gourmet. And I’m just finishing the catalogue of the Etel Adnan exhibition at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Ithra, Saudi Arabia, which opened this Sunday. It will be available soon.

TSF

Do you have any favourite places in your neighbourhood you’d like to share with us?

Sarah

Cuisine (50 rue Condorcet, Paris 9), where I love the food, obviously, and the restaurant’s decor by Federico Masotto. Les Petits Mitrons (26 rue Lepic, Paris 18), for the best tarts in Paris, especially their caramelised crust. And Bilili, (136 rue du faubourg Poissonière, Paris 10), because I love the whole menu.

Sarah Martinon et Constance Gennari, fondatrice de The Socialite Family

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