At PAD Paris, Omar Chakil’s new alabaster works for Galerie Gastou fuses Egyptian heritage and contemporary design

Showing in Paris for the first time, French-Egyptian-Lebanese designer Omar Chakil is set to unveil his new design series during PAD Paris (April 2-6) with Galerie Gastou, presenting his signature blend of craftsmanship, art and design.

The 17-piece collection is all made from Egyptian alabaster onyx – a stunning endemic material once used in heritage crafts and revered by the Pharaohs for its translucent qualities – which is here reimagined through contemporary aesthetics.

Omar Chakil's 17-piece collection at PAD Paris

Inspired by the theme of Transcendence, the series seeks to create a dialogue between East and West, past and present, sacred and contemporary, as the latest creations produced from Chakil’s journey with this material.

'For me, transcendence has become the main difference between collectible design and regular design,' Chakil says. 'My motivation comes from wanting to tell a story and putting a piece of myself into the work and research, so it’s not just a functional piece, but a piece that transcends functionality and evokes a narrative that can hopefully touch people.

'Funnily enough, working with alabaster in a contemporary way actually meant working with it the way Pharaohs used to. In the modern era, it had become something that was treated with a lot of varnish and fillers, and a lot of the stone you find in the Khan Al Khalili souk was coming from China or not even alabaster,' he adds. 'I tried to bring it back to its essential nature, and to try to use as many large solid blocks as possible, bringing it into the now by using contemporary shapes and aesthetics. In a way, these designs also transcended time.'

Despite its prevalence in ancient times, Egyptian alabaster was cast aside in the modern era – seen as an inferior, humble relic of the past that had no place in luxurious design, compared unfavourably against imported marbles and rose onyx from Italy and Iran. Chakil has spent years experimenting with the material, searching for sources of now-uncommon large blocks, and attempting to bring it into design in new ways.

At the PAD Paris Galerie Gastou booth, founder Victor Gastou envisioned an immersive space dedicated to Ancient Egypt and its unique afterlife rituals – where Pharaohs would surround themselves with their finest possessions for their final journey – acting as both complement and contrast to Chakil’s modern take on heritage.

Including seating, a coffee table, bookshelves and decorative items, Chakil gives a subtle nod to Ancient Egyptian animal deities, used as motifs in the designs. The hand-carved pair of ‘Uraeus Birth Chairs’ are crowned by upright, hooded cobras, as a symbol of protection. The scarab beetle, representing rebirth and associated with the sun god Horus, is styled into a coffee table combining Italian marble and alabaster.

Chakil’s ‘Sobek Bench’ is minimalist but striking, shaped in his signature capsule pill style out of marble with a large vein of inlaid alabaster quartz crystal sweeping through.

'It represents Sobek, the crocodile god of Egypt. I actually scanned the tail of a Nile crocodile and created the illusion of a fossil with alabaster quartz crystals,' Chakil says. 'Instead of just creating a crocodile or making it obvious when you see the bench, you don't really know what you're looking at, and I usually like to keep things as abstract as possible.

'There’s also a set of ‘Colorama Canopic’ jars, inspired by the alabaster jars the Ancient Egyptians placed the organs in at the tombs,' he adds, 'but here I imagine that the different colours represents the chakras, where you can store the dreams that you weren't able to fulfil during this life, so that you can take them with you.'

While this embrace of Ancient Egyptian iconography is something of a departure for Chakil, who generally opts to create less ornate pieces with a clean finish, this new experimentation is just as captivating as his previous works, and leaves the possibilities for future projects wide open.

Chakil’s series is on show at PAD Paris at Galerie Gastou’s booth 54, April 2-6.

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