Into The Woods: The Ideal Studio and The Ideal Collection: Galerie Andres Thalmann, Paris, France
Galerie Andres Thalmann presents Into the Woods: The Ideal Studio and The Ideal Collection, a major new exhibition by Irish artist Eamon O’Kane exploring trees, architecture, design and the cultural networks connecting Ireland, Paris and the south of France.
At the centre of the exhibition is a new body of work responding to the legacy of Irish-born architect and designer Eileen Gray. O’Kane presents large-scale paintings and drawings of trees encountered in Paris and the south of France, particularly around Gray’s houses and architectural projects, alongside his Baum Test and tree prints. These works consider the tree as both image and structure: a form of growth, branching, memory and connection.
New paintings also explore modernist architecture associated with Gray and her circle, including buildings by Robert Mallet-Stevens. The relationship between Gray and Mallet-Stevens provides a key historical thread. Both were central figures in the Parisian avant-garde and members of the Union des Artistes Modernes. Their collaboration is particularly visible at the Villa Noailles in Hyères, where Mallet-Stevens commissioned Gray to contribute furniture and the celebrated Tarabos rug to the interiors. Purchased by Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles from Gray’s Paris gallery, Jean Désert, in 1924, the Tarabos rug was placed in Marie-Laure’s bedroom at Villa Noailles. O’Kane’s paintings revisit this intersection of architecture, interior, textile and artistic experimentation, connecting the Paris gallery with the modernist architecture of the Mediterranean.
O’Kane also presents small paintings based on Gray’s architecture, furniture and Jean Désert, which was located on the same street as Galerie Andres Thalmann. Gray studied at the Académie Julian, whose life-drawing facilities were also nearby.
The exhibition extends into O’Kane’s long-running series An Ideal Collection, bringing together Irish artists, architects and cultural references, including connections between Gray and Francis Bacon, and Irish architectural practices such as Scott Tallon Walker and Liam McCormack. O’Kane will also present a new series of prints based on modernist furniture including chairs by Eileen Gray.
Into the Woods considers the studio, gallery, house and collection as interconnected spaces where ideas are made, exchanged and preserved. Through painting, drawing and printmaking, O’Kane traces networks of modernism across Ireland and Europe and asks how artistic histories continue to grow, branch and resonate in the present.
