New Collections From St Leger & Viney
Interior design meets art in Colourway, an exhibition celebrating two colourful new St Leger & Viney collections
14/01/2025
Sarah Ord - image credit Vignette
Get ready for an exciting fusion of colour, art, fabric, decor and interior design this March. Colourway is an exhibition of paintings by Lauren Shantall in collaboration with Sarah Ord, which opens at St Leger & Viney in Cape Town, in the heart of the Mother City’s decor hub in charming Chelsea Village in Wynberg. The show marks the launch of two new colourful fabric collections, named Modern Velvet and Vintage Linen.
Colourway features vibrant interior-themed paintings that are inspired by the saturated tones of the new fabrics as well as the centuries-old tradition of still life painting, as seen through a contemporary lens. The revolving exhibition opens to the public from 17h00 onwards on Thursday 6 March 2025 and will be on show indefinitely, with new art pieces added all the time, providing fresh inspiration with each visit to the showroom.
Lillies by Sarah Ord and Lauren Shantall
For the most part, the paintings showcase a series of floral arrangements in vases that are occasionally combined with other objet d’art. Some of the pieces are solely by Shantall, others have been created in collaboration with Ord, with both artists contributing brushstrokes to the same canvas, and sometimes simultaneously too.
‘Collaborating with Sarah on a number of the paintings brings a further dimension and has been a wonderful process. It’s a dialogue between two people who share an unbridled love of colour - we just click and our choices are harmonious. It is a rare meeting, and a pleasurable one…’ says Shantall.
Formerly the Deputy Editor of home decor title Elle Decoration and Manager of the Design Indaba Expo, and now the Director of local agency Scout PR & Social Media, Shantall works mainly in acrylics on canvas and paints in her spare time. Ord is a celebrated interior designer and multi-talented creative known for her bold use of colour and eclectic style. She is the creative force behind notable projects such as private members club The Stack, Noka safari lodge, and a host of private residences anywhere from Cape Cod to Mauritius, to Constantia. Together, their artworks invite guests into a world where interior design meets creative expression.
Lauren Shantall
To build the exhibition, Shantall ‘spent time in the beautiful St Leger & Viney showroom exploring the fabrics and pulling out the samples that spoke to me especially. I then photographed those ones and reproduced some of the patterns, or sections of the patterns on canvas, as elements in the paintings. The fabric colours were especially inspiring as reference material, and I used blocks of colour from the new Vintage Linen and Modern Velvet collections as backgrounds and foregrounds. I wanted to explore how these adaptable colourways could be adapted into a different medium, into painting, which is why this exhibition is called Colourway. I love how an interior designer might compose a room using elements like colour through the use of fabric - much in the same way a painter or photographer might compose a picture. And of course, there’s that longstanding still life painting tradition of capturing details in a room. It’s inter-related and this just adds another layer to that,’ she says.
Blue Study Alstroemeria by Lauren Shantall
The resulting paintings set up a
rich dialogue with the fabrics. ‘Both Vintage
Linen and Modern Velvet have a long colour line,
which means that there are a variety of
different colours, so they are just like a paint
palette - you can do what you want with them.
They are saturated colours that are a little
more complex and sophisticated,’ says St Leger &
Viney’s new CEO Peter Gordon, who initiated the
idea of introducing original artworks into the
mix.
St Leger & Viney has been a leader
in South Africa’s interior design industry since
1989. Renowned for its premium selection of
fabrics, wall coverings and trimmings, the St
Leger & Viney offering features international
icons like Ralph Lauren, Dedar, Élitis and
Thibaut, with a focus on innovation and
craftsmanship.
The two new collections are no exception. Modern Velvet comes in 17 rich colours, combining a soft, velvety texture with a sleek, modern look. Vintage Linen, available in 15 classic shades, is an elegant fabric that looks like washed linen and features a distinct mélange pattern.
The new fabrics will be on display at the opening of the exhibition, and thereafter will form part of the staple offering in the Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town showrooms. In addition to the paintings on show in Cape Town, select art pieces will also be exhibited in the Johannesburg showroom. There is no cost to view the Colourway exhibition, which is open to visitors during office hours.
Details:
For more information follow @laurenshantall @sarahordinteriors and @stleger_and_viney on Instagram.
Image Credits:
Portrait of
Sarah Ord by Vignette - @vignette.sa