Slender and lightweight like a butterfly, with fairy hands. Thus, she welcomes you in her workshop where her delicate paper works are revealed to your eyes. Lauren Collin is a rooted and aerial art craftsman, who draws her signature from her family history, working on paper with scalpel, between shadow and light, shape and emptiness, volume and flat. Her creations make us feel good, as they are the fruit of a very meticulous work, bearing precious moments that speak of elegance and softness, of nature everywhere. Each vision is then a caress of light that leads us to wonder, in an ultimate refinement that reveals the soul of paper and the poetic beauty of the world.
A family of creators
“I come from a loving family with a stomatologist dad who was a maxillofacial surgeon and a mom in the decorative arts, who also had a specialty as a painter in decorations.” Lauren grew up in the Paris region, with the garden as a playground, and learned life by watching her parents. Her mother drawing a lot and created watercolors or useful objects, and her father treating his patients with scalpels. The little girl was fascinated by these works and early, she decided to choose a profession turned towards others, associating it with her great creativity. “I inherited his microscope and I loved looking at the small leaves under the glass plates and peering at the tiny one.” And her childhood little sketchbook reveals a very talented designer, with a great level of detail and colors in each flower and butterfly. Everyone in her family had an artistic streak: a famous illustrator, musicians, a grandfather who was an accountant and passionate about ironwork, then her very-beloved grandmother, left too early, who lived in total immersion in nature. “The chickens, the rabbits, the rhythm of the seasons and the sacred time devoted to cooking… I have here my most beautiful memories.” In high school, Lauren Collin will choose first the option “laboratory and paramedical biology” to invest herself in the technical form patterns of living; then she will take up a generalist path, trying to find a way to combine her scientific spirit and her artistic taste… even if she should move towards professions that are still dedicated to men.
Find her vocation
After having successfully completed the “plastic arts” option at the baccalaureate, she enrolled in preparatory classes at the Atelier de Sèvres in Paris. “I had obtained very good grades, which comforted me in the choice of this path and I was thirsty to learn all the disciplines while still leaving open the choice of my specialization.” Building projects, sharpening her gaze, giving the best of herself… she will find her fulfillment there. “I particularly liked design, to create objects that were useful and easy to handle… how to sit comfortably for example. It was my way of helping others, rather than being a doctor or a veterinarian.” Lauren took the next step entering the prestigious Penninghen School of Artistic Direction and Interior Architecture. Despite the masculine coloration of the profession that was described to her at the beginning, her creativity would finally express itself there and on all kind of media, especially paper. As a child, she had set up her restaurant in the garden hut. Here, she created a restaurant model for her degree in interior architecture. “There were plenty of hollow teeth in Paris and it was to sublimate this gap between two buildings with just a platform that went gradually over the rooftops with a sublime view of the capital and a Chef who puts forward local products.” An unforgettable sensory experience with the horizon without limits and the delicate flavors that truly tempt your taste buds. She would use more and more paper, for its cleanliness and transparency, until it becomes her signature with an invention of her own… “striations that I had made with a cutter on a plexiglass that gave stripes all white as waves. I thought it was very beautiful! I then began to cut the paper and this technique stayed with her to this day.”
Carved papers
Now all her pieces have this signature. They are very pure with transparent grain sets, and drawings in the thickness of the paper that reveal unexpected volumes, in a graphic that evolves with shadow and light. Her degree presentation will seduce the firm Gilles & Boissier. “It’s a bit special, enclosed in a box with paper-carved edges, and everything is Japanese paper in the shape of an accordion; so it’s about a hundred sheets of paper that are linked together, and that tells the story of my skill and my personality.” Lauren Collin will practice in this company for more than 3 years as an interior designer. “I had the opportunity to deal with clients, understanding their language and their needs. When you make a plan, everything has to be beautiful to the eye, harmonious and proportional to the body and everything has to be in a room. This is even more difficult because you end up in a smaller format. I needed this progression to get to my today’s art.” In this firm, she will continue to work on the evenings as a visual artist, and will increasingly discover the scope of the possible with her essays. She will also use her father’s scalpels, much lighter to cut through the Arches watercolor leaves of good density (850 or 640 grams). The rest will follow very quickly. A first creation on a smooth paper with a satin grain, where her slightly curved gesture reveals petals and a sumptuous bouquet of flowers reminiscent of the staff moldings of beautiful apartments. She then will decide to devote herself entirely to this art, “difficult to describe…with a very repetitive side of movement combined with limitless creativity.”
Take inspiration from every encounter
Lauren Collin’s luminous sculptures are now recognized and consecrated with multiple awards. She was also nominated as a finalist for the Liliane Bettencourt Prize for the Intelligence of the Hand, and was named European great artist Homo Faber of the Michelangelo Foundation. A profession that is lived alone, but whose whole purpose is to meet people. The projects she carries out reveal all the authenticity of her approach and her world made of softness, simplicity and elegance. Soon, she will exhibit a piece she particularly likes in the Gustav-Lübcke Hamm Museum of Germany. “I designed it during my pregnancy and then worked on it again until last September. It therefore carries a very strong personal imprint and a real evolution of my life as a woman.” A very floral piece with an explosion of flowers, which will be presented among other works dedicated to paper.
And after her unique pieces for the Hotel Crillon, she presently meet with Chef Christophe Hay, two Michelin stars, which will soon open in Blois his first 5 star hotel with a gourmet restaurant, a brasserie, a pastry kiosk and a spa on the river. “It will be called ‘Fleur de Loire’, such a beautiful name and there will be in each of the 44 rooms a representation of one of my works of paper designed for the occasion.” The glittering, graceful droplets, such as the reflections of the Loire, full of freshness and life, will be molded by a French craftsman and whose plaster imprint, different each time, will be exposed to the eyes of the lucky hosts. “These are territories, pieces of nature, universes, visions that also make me evolve personally and I would like to continue to give myself entirely in this kind of project that gives meaning and resonates in my journey.”
At 33, this artist, so deep and bright, will have succeeded her childhood dream. Take care of others by bringing a touch of grace and lightness into the world’s life. How can we reconcile the harmony observed in nature, on such a fragile material but with so much potential? Here lies the metamorphosis of paper into textured work. And Lauren Collin is being shaped in each project, while a forever new creation emerges beneath her fingertips, where the essence of being joins the essential in an endless hymn.
Interview held by Carine Mouradian on February, the 25th 2022
Link to Lauren Collin’s website
Photo Gallery of Lauren Collin
Related projects
