Galerie Scene Ouverte Designs L’abysse Monte Carlo, A Tactile And Uplifting Exploration Of Materials And Contemporary Craft

Gallery founder Laurence Bonnel's concept brings together design pieces that merge Japanese influences with bold material exploration, creating a stimulating space for an exalted culinary experience.

Paris-based art and design gallery Galerie SCENE OUVERTE curates the interior for L’Abysse Monte Carlo in Monaco, the newly opened restaurant of Hôtel Hermitage. Created in collaboration with architecture and design studio RoWin’ Atelier, gallery founder Laurence Bonnel unveils the space as a timeless universe of tactile exploration and perpetual movement, reflecting the profound culinary experience of Michelin starred chef Yannick Alléno and renowned sushi connoisseur Yasunari Okazaki. Blurring the lines between art and design, Bonnel adorns the restaurant with works by artists Célia Bertrand, Wiliam Coggin, Silver Sentimenti, and Caroline Désile, creating a sanctuary of serenity and wander.

L’Abysse Monte Carlo brings together forty years of gastronomic expertise to extract the flavors of marine life from the Mediterranean Sea. Blending French cuisine with Japanese culinary traditions, the menu unfolds with power and lightness, unveiling an umami of texture and taste that honors local ingredients. Transcending this concept into decor, Bonnel and architecture duo RoWin’ Atelier, create an environment where the mind can revel into an exalted culinary experience. The varied textures and combined materials, such as wood, marble, travertine, velvet and ceramics, incite a sense exploration, while the lines, sometimes soft and curving, sometimes strong and rigorous, balance their richness with grace and fluidity.

RoWin’ Atelier, Bonnel’s main collaborator, sets the scene with a large indigo carpet inspired by the archipelagos of the Seto Inland Sea in Japan. The indigo dye ‘Ao’ blue, traditionally produced on the island of Shikoku near the Seto Sea, is used in blue Japanese prints known as ‘Aizuri-e’, meaning ‘images printed in blue’, the technique most known in the artistic practice of renowned artist Hokusai. Japanese influences are also found in the ten chairs surrounding the bar table by Antwerp-based manufacturer Heerenhuis. The seatings’ back, for example, is inspired by the traditional Japanese gates named ‘Tori’, while the wooden frame is inspired by the ‘Kigumi’ technique – the craft of jointing wood without nails or metal fittings, allowing repetitive assembling and disassembling. In the rest of the room, 24 curved armchairs by award-winning Swedish furniture brand Fogia, accompany the bar seating with a similar pink tone.

Engaging in a constant dialogue with contemporary art and design, Bonnel brings together four artists whose practices push the boundaries of materiality through bold experimentation and dedicated craftmanship. Artist Célia Bertrand unveils an interplay of curves and rhythms inspired by plant life, adding an uplifting, perpetual movement to the space. Her two light fixtures nearly two meters long titled ‘Flore’, illuminate the dining bar, as white gold plays with reflections and translucent raw porcelain lets light through the cracks and reliefs, creating a play of living shadows through the material. William Coggin's ‘Coral Wall’ installations in white ceramic embrace the seating area. Spread across the walls over fifteen square meters, fluid forms emerge from a coarse surface, evoking the movement of the ocean, its sand dunes, and coral reefs. Coggin’s installation marks the boundless union between Japanese cuisine and the sea.

Complementing the Japanese influences inhabiting the room, artist Caroline Désile’s four sculptures from her series ‘Série Origami’ unveil an encounter between the structural forms in the ancestral Japanese art of folding, and the artist’s reflections on the ephemerality of existence, emulated through the flow of light and shadow on raw material. Inspired by the architectural elements of the space as a whole and Bonnel’s color palette, two ceramic pieces 70 centimeters tall by artist Silver Sentimenti, echo the spatial forms of the room, with embroided leather in tones that harmonize with the design concept as an ensemble.

Laurence Bonnel creates large-scale installations of sculptures for public spaces and private properties. The deeply rooted desire to share her creative vision transcends into Galerie Scene Ouverte, epitomizing the union of contemporary creativity and artisanal excellence. Featuring a plethora of artists, the gallery’s focus is firm on work which transcends mere functionality and rather becomes an element of narrative and vision of its distinct era. The gallery recently inaugurated its new location in Paris and will host its first-ever solo exhibition in October 2024.