Sarah Espeute

Published 05 / 09 / 2021

From the city of Marseille, Sarah Espeute expresses her creativity through different mediums. Halfway between art and craftsmanship, she notably develops a line of embroidered pieces. For the start of the 2021 school year, Sarah signs a new collaboration with OROS in connection with wood. Meet.

Hello Sarah. Artist and designer, you are currently evolving in the practice of embroidery. Can you tell us about your journey so far? 

I was educated in an Applied Arts high school in Nîmes and then I went to Paris to do a BTS Visual Communication at Olivier de Serre (ENSAAMA). After these 2 years and a 6-month internship in London, I set up RISO PRESTO, a printing and publishing house specializing in Riso, a printing technique similar to screen printing on office automation duplicators (from the RISO brand ) misappropriated for artistic purposes. Little by little I turned to illustration and it is in this process that I became more particularly interested in the concept of “interior illustration” under the duo “Klima Intérieurs”. This illustrative and imaginary approach to our vision of design and art pushed me to 3D creation. The embroidery learned as a child and my attraction to textiles naturally constituted my first mediums to imagine decorative objects. At home, I had the idea of ​​making trompe-l'oeil and drawing with thread on curtains. I immediately liked the illustrative rendering in an interior. The meal tablecloth came following this experiment, for an exhibition around the table in Biarritz.

Your embroidered pieces for the table reveal modern but at the same time timeless patterns. What are you looking for through them? 

The trompe-l'oeil tablecloth gives a new dimension to the table, a fun shift without losing its original meaning, that of meals and conviviality. The embroidery and the old fabric bring this authentic and traditional side that I love so much. By doing narrative embroidery, I can imagine so many stories and hanging moments. But I like that the narrative medium relies on familiar objects that I find timeless. I like the idea that the tablecloth has no time marker, that it is between the past and the present, that it makes you forget the notion of time.

How do you select your fabrics? 

I mainly use old Métis, a linen and cotton weaving, very common for making sheets at the time. They are thick and the quality is incomparable with that of the current fabric. These sheets are between 50 and 100 years old and I think it's great to be able to give them a second life. When they are stained or too bleached by washing, I have them dyed in natural dye, everything is reused!

You who perpetuate traditions and know-how through your practice, how do you see craftsmanship evolving in the coming years? 

Craftsmanship is once again the future of design. People realize the value of a craft object, the know-how behind the hand and the human behind the know-how.

For the new selection “On The Table”, we suggested that you design pieces for the table inspired by wood. What is your interest in this material and how does it inspire you? 

I really like the presence of wood in an interior, I even find that essential! Even though it is a common material, it remains noble and authentic. And then there are so many ways to work on it, to renew it, that the inspiration is endless. Wood we will never get tired of.

Can you present us these 2 pieces that you imagined and designed?

When Laure asked me to imagine table elements inspired by wood, I immediately wanted to use my scraps of old fabrics to make quilts. The fabrics are raw with different colors, I assemble them like pieces of wood. The “butterfly” yoke of the double placemats echoes the “dovetail wrench” wood assembly, traditionally used to consolidate cracked wood. The black lines which symbolize the grain of the wood are made with a sewing machine, this is what brings finesse to the point but also this mechanical side which balances with the rustic and raw aspect of the fabric.

Find his pieces on our Online Store, Creators tab.