Eleanor Lakelin & Aude Herlédan: In Shadow and In Light

Exhibition view, ‘Aude Herlédan and Eleanor Lakelin: In Shadow and in Light’
COURTESY: Rosenberg & Co. / PHOTOGRAPHY: © Adam Reich

ON THE EVE of a joint presentation at Art Paris 2026, The Design Edit interviewed the artists Eleanor Lakelin and Aude Herlédan. Following a ten-year acquaintance, the two began an intensive process of creative dialogue last October. Eleanor Lakelin works with wood, typically sequoia or horse chestnut burr, creating powerful sculptures using wood-turning techniques. Her pieces establish a tension between human culture and personal memory, reflected in archaic vessel forms, and the excavation of the character, history and energy of the tree itself. Through empathy, there is a fusion.

Eleanor Lakelin, ‘Moon #2’, 2026
COURTESY: Eleanor Lakelin & Galerie 1831 / PHOTOGRAPH: © Evan Mason

Aude Herlédan meanwhile works across media and genres, predominantly with abstract painting, capturing movement and transformation with her gestural brushstrokes and thickly textured layers of paint. 

Aude Herlédan, ‘In light II’, 2026
COURTESY: Aude Herlédan & Galerie 1831

Both are inspired by landscape and memory and work through contrasts of light and dark, order and chaos, ancient and contemporary, the rough and the smooth. One seeks stillness, the other dynamism. But both acknowledge that capturing the life force – within nature and within themselves – is fundamental to their separate enterprises. For these shows they not only display together, to explore the affinities of their work, but have also made new work in response to visits to each other’s studios, exploring what a true dialogue might generate.   

Exhibition view, ‘Aude Herlédan and Eleanor Lakelin: In Shadow and in Light’
COURTESY: Rosenberg & Co. / PHOTOGRAPHY: © Adam Reich

The Design Edit (TDE): How did the two of you come to know each other?
Aude Herlédan (AH): Ten years ago, I was looking for wood sculpture, scouting for my husband’s gallery, 1831, and by chance I discovered the work of Eleanor. For many reasons, I was very touched. I invited her to Paris and for ten years we have shown work together there. But this is the first time we have really worked together on a project. 

Aude Herlédan, ‘Figure dorée’, 2024
COURTESY: Aude Herlédan & Galerie 1831

The Design Edit (TDE): What was your experience, Eleanor, of meeting Aude’s work ten years ago? And how has this project moved the conversation on?
Eleanor Lakelin (EL): It was very interesting to encounter somebody whose work is very different from my own, but talks about some of the same things – in terms of material as well as layers, time and memory. And it is certainly interesting to see your work in a different context. The work that I usually showed with Aude’s work in Paris was my carved work in sequoia. It was definitely the work that was to do with layers and time. But this show is slightly different because it includes work in burr. So I have had a wider selection of work to think about in terms of a dialogue between our works. 

Eleanor Lakelin, ‘Lidded vessel #3’, 2024
COURTESY: Eleanor Lakelin & Galerie 1831

TDE: In terms of the affinities that you see between your work, is it an affinity of sensibility, or material, or practice, or aesthetics?
AH: I would say it’s many, many things. For instance, I think we have a similar story. Eleanor and I, we had another life before becoming completely artists. We waited. We chose to become artists in our maturity. I think also, what may also be true for me, is that Eleanor’s work is very honest, very sincere, very intense, and that touched me very much. We have the same search, I would say. We have another thing in common. I grew up in Africa and worked for several years in Kenya with the United Nations. Eleanor taught in West Africa. I don’t know if this experience is in her work. It is really in my work. But we share this experience of looking for different dialogues in our lives. And I also sculpt – though not in wood, but in clay, bronze, stone and marble – and I enjoy the tactility of using diverse materials in my painting.

Aude Herlédan, ‘Memory land’, 2026
COURTESY: Aude Herlédan & Galerie 1831

EL: For years, the work we showed in the gallery was very different. But it’s been really interesting to think about the ways our work talks to each other. Maybe it’s not always in the same way. Because I think Aude’s work is much more gestural than mine, and mine is quite still and object based. But they sit together somehow. We have a similar sensibility in terms of the place of time and memory in our work – and it’s also quite instinctive. Certainly, my work was always part of me, part of my identity. It goes back to my childhood, long before I thought of using material as a means of expression. And so I think we’re similar in that sense. And we use contrast or polarities, both of us, in our work. I guess things are working on different levels – but maybe that makes for a more interesting dialogue because it doesn’t all fall completely exactly. I think we both appeal to the senses. My work is more than a visual thing. It’s very much to do with tactility and I think that is the same with Aude’s very layered, very textured paintings. 

Exhibition view, ‘Aude Herlédan and Eleanor Lakelin: In Shadow and in Light’
COURTESY: Rosenberg & Co. / PHOTOGRAPHY: © Adam Reich

TDE: You are both artists who work very much from within yourselves and your own memories. So was it quite a challenge, this idea of having a dialogue?
AH: It was the first time I had really worked with another artist. To meet Eleanor in our [respective] studios and really explore what we have in common, and where we are different, was a wonderful challenge. I have felt obliged to stretch myself, to be the best I can. And when I saw the exhibition in New York, the way the gallery has put the work together, it was like a gift. It keeps our individual expression intact, but at the same time the works go so well together.

Exhibition view, ‘Aude Herlédan and Eleanor Lakelin: In Shadow and in Light’
COURTESY: Rosenberg & Co. / PHOTOGRAPHY: © Adam Reich

EL: One of the challenges was that we didn’t have enough time. But I think you’re right that the work somehow works together without us having had endless amounts of time together and without having to force it. It still feels like our work, but something new is created by having those pieces together. And we created a couple of pieces literally together. So for me, there is a group of vessels that are very thin and have a kind of flare, which is much more gestural, much quicker – you can sort of feel the movement, which is unusual for me. It was just interesting looking at somebody else’s work and thinking about the ways in which it was actually different – the ways in which you could feel that immediacy, or kind of gesture of movement in Aude’s work. Mine usually feels much more like it’s something you might have dug up or found. And so it was really curious to look at ways of making something that looked more immediate, as if made in a moment in time. 

Eleanor Lakelin, ‘Flares Group’, 2026
COURTESY: Eleanor Lakelin & Galerie 1831 / PHOTOGRAPH: © Evan Mason

TDE: There will be new work in Paris?
EL: For me, work takes years or months, so there’s much more of my work that is work that exists already, but I have made some more flares for this show. And there will also be some big pieces on display, not shown in New York.

AH: I am still making new work! It’s much more interesting now because we have done New York and I could be more mature in this dialogue.