100 COLORS NO.48 “100 COLORS BUTTERFLIES” by Architect, artist and designer Emmanuelle Moureaux
Immersive Paper installation made of colorful paper butterflies
For Lancôme’s Art of Absolue 2023 exhibition, Somexing Artistic curated a commission with Emmanuelle Moureaux. The French architect and artist expands her ongoing 100 Colors series with 100 Colors Butterflies. Through this immersive installation, she explores color as a spatial and emotional medium.
Moreover, the installation reflects Lancôme’s vision of beauty as a harmony of diversity and emotion. It transforms space into a vibrant landscape where color becomes a language of joy and contemplation.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
100 Colors N°.48 “100 Colors Butterflies”
Entitled 100 Colors N°.48 100 Colors Butterflies, the artwork is a monumental paper-cut installation. It is composed of 40,000 butterflies in 100 meticulously selected hues, suspended to form a vibrant, layered composition. As part of her ongoing 100 Colors series, the piece transforms space into a floating chromatic landscape where color, light, and air become the architecture itself.
Each butterfly is hand-cut and arranged in precise color gradations. As such, it embodies Moureaux’s concept of shikiri: the art of dividing space through color. Measures 1950 × 1950 × 1000 cm, the artwork creates an immersive environment that invites visitors into a meditative encounter.
Through Somexing Artistic’s curatorial mediation, 100 Colors Butterflies bridges architectural precision and poetic abstraction. It turns fragile, ephemeral materials into a monumental exploration of color, nature, and sensory experience.
Technique
Paper-cutting
Format
1950cm x 1950cm x 1000cm
Project
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Emmanuelle Moureaux
Top French artist, architect and designer Emmanuelle Moureaux is ‘The Architect of Colors”. Inspired by the layers and colors of Tokyo that built a complex depth and density on the street, and the Japanese traditional spatial elements like sliding screens, she has created the concept of Shikiri, which literally means “dividing (creating) space with colors”. She uses colors as three-dimensional elements, like layers, in order to create spaces, not as a finishing touch applied on surfaces. Handling colors as a medium to compose space, her wish is to give emotion through colors with her creations, which range from art, design to architecture.
Her work extend to a number of projects, including architectural design for Sugamo Shinkin Bank, art installations and brand collabs and elevate brand experience (collaboration with brands Uniqlo, Issey Miyake, Lancôme).
