As we march toward the end of winter, I wanted to share some thoughts on new work, just in time for you to mark your calendars for a very special edition of PAD Paris.
This year’s fair holds particular significance for me, not only because it marks my first participation in the event in my hometown of Paris but because the works will be shown by Galerie Gastou. A pioneering Parisian institution founded in 1986, with its now-iconic terrazzo façade, designed by Ettore Sottsass, Galerie Gastou has long been a portal to groundbreaking exhibitions, from the Memphis Group to Ron Arad. The gallery has played a key role in shaping the conversation around design, nurturing creators, including myself. As a child, I would often visit, sometimes just to admire its vitrine on Sundays. Those moments remain a « madeleine de Proust » for me, making this collaboration all the more meaningful.
In 2005, Victor Gastou joined his father, Yves in continuing the gallery’s singular quest: to create a space where design and artistic expression thrive in a celebration of playfulness and freedom. I met Victor in New York a few years ago, and we quickly found a shared rhythm. Our conversations eventually led to this upcoming exhibition, where Victor encouraged me to lean into more literal references to Ancient Egypt, a gesture that had always been under the surface of my work.
The resulting creations bring Ancient Egyptian animal deities into my own vision of time and space. Whether mimicking the fossilized tail of a Nile crocodile scanned from a real size reptile in Egyptian alabaster quartz crystals (Sobek bench) or embedding the sacred scarab’s rebirth symbolism into mineral symbiosis, the guiding intention remains the same: transforming matter into soul-nourishing experiences.
Produced at Stones by Rania Malli, one of the region’s leading luxury marble facilities, these pieces fuse Egyptian, Persian, and Italian high-end marbles into meticulously refined yet playful shapes. Résurrection much more than a coffee table, becomes a symbol of unity, soft power, and timelessness.
Some may recall Birth Chair, a unique piece that sold at a past Piasa auction celebrating Lebanese design. (I am a proud Beirut-born French Egyptian, Lebanese.) For Galerie Gastou, I wanted to reinterpret it, infusing it with divine power and protection. The result: the Uraeus Birth Chairs, crowned by upright, open-hood cobras, symbols of guardianship. Entirely hand-carved from massive blocks of Egyptian alabaster onyx, these pieces will see the light of day this April in the Jardin des Tuileries.
Alongside them, Nubia, a capsule shaped monolithic totem with carved, niche-like shelves, extends a line of exploration that began with a previous exhibition Suite Anima at Cairo’s Le Lab gallery. That show explored the potential for spiritual presence within inanimate forms. Later, further research made for an upcoming collaboration with Egyptian collectible design brand Don Tanani highlighted a core theme in my work: transcendence.
The word itself derives from the Latin transcendere, to rise beyond.
Back in 2018, my first design exhibition at Beirut’s OTC Gallery was titled Volutes, an homage to the smoke-like motifs in Egyptian alabaster, evoking energy moving through time and space.
While researching the idea of transcendence in Design, I came across Glenn Adamson’s insightful essay, ´We Want to Take You Higher’ written as a companion to the exhibition he curated called The New Trascendance at Friedman Benda.
He asks:
“Chairs, lamps, cabinets, and vessels are earthly things. They attend to our practical rather than our spiritual needs. They are often regarded as mere commodities, or otherwise cast in a cultural supporting role. What would it take for us to invert these expectations, and to see functional objects as the ultimate vehicle for transport? More than that, to see them as incarnating, on the worldly plane, a quality of transcendence that is sui generis, literally superhuman, providing us with nothing but inspiration and
requiring little more than reverence?”
This question had been on my mind for a long time before reading Adamson’s essay, which articulated it so eloquently.
On February 22nd, a collective exhibition by Le Lab and Tamara Haus in Downtown Cairo introduced my new Colorama Canopic Jars, an ode to the sacred vessels Ancient Egyptians used to preserve the organs of the deceased for the afterlife in dialogue with works by contemporary visual artist Moataz Nasreldin. I reimagined them not for bodily remains, but for something equally strong yet fragile: unfulfilled dreams and wishes.
Each jar has an aerodynamic lid (for potential increased velocity through time and space), with color infused vessels that can correspond to a full spectrum of desires, linking mineral nature to human nature.
For example, someone who regrets not having children in this life, for example, might place their wish in the coral-colored jar which I personally link to the sacral chakra. Others might simply choose a jar that resonates with them intuitively. And for those who find such ideas « too out there », they can simply appreciate the aesthetic input of the objects.
This approach to infusing alabaster onyx with pigments also lead to Droop a new Colorama modular set referencing a downward limp designed to reveal color infused parts of the stone and ignite sensorial connections. The series is accompanied by matching round candy like sconces and delicate boxes extending the confluence between inanimate objects and ourselves.
These will debut at luxury carpet house Iwan Maktabi’s new flagship gallery during Art Dubai, further exploring transcendence through matter, shape and color.
At a time when the world is searching for hope and clarity, transcendence through creation feels like a mission worth pursuing.
If you’re reading these words, chances are you, too, have taken on that mission like many before and after us.
We might never reach a space of everlasting harmony, but if the words of Frank Lloyd Wright hold true “An idea is salvation by imagination`”, then, in his spirit, I invite you to dream and imagine a world where we can transcend whatever it is that keeps us from becoming our better selves.
See you in Paris or Dubai this April,
Happy March…forward
Omar
