Pli Lights by French Designer Fabien Petiot.

The Pli lamp comprising of an airy paper lamp sitting atop a black bamboo base.

French designer Fabien Petiot enjoys experimenting in many fields. He revels in combining craftsmanship and design, art and writing, a creative balance created by embracing all these disciplines. During the last edition of Art Paris in October, represented by the Mouvements Modernes gallery, he exhibited Pli — one of his flagship pieces. The Pli lamp and wall light pay tribute to the work of Isamu Noguchi and Diego Giacometti, playing with the subtlety of light filtered through paper.

Pli (meaning Fold) is a delicate and airy piece, diffusing a soft light from the top of its slender silhouette, and despite its apparent lightness, has a strong sculptural presence thanks to an unusual black bamboo base. Fabien explains “Behind the apparent simplicity, hides an extensive collaboration with exceptional craftsmen, whether a woodturner, a locksmith or a master plasterer, who, over the course of their respective contributions, have created a lamp of the utmost finesse, filled with the beautiful imperfections of nature as well as of the human hand.”

As with all his creations, Fabien searches for the confluence between high-quality art craft and unexpected materials. To magnify the bamboo, he associated it with plaster — modelled and then scratched by the staffer’s tool, and with turned walnut, supporting a very airy lampshade, made of a simple folded paper.

He adds, “When I design a light, I try to capture the magic of a paper lantern or a flickering candle flame, but with other tools. Pli offers a comforting presence; discreet yet simultaneously recreating a world around it, like a cabin outside of this world, outside of time.”

Related: Best of Product Design, Art & Events | 2021 Archive.

[Images courtesy of Fabien Petiot. Photography by Thilbault Breton.]