皮埃尔·博纳尔由因迪亚·马赫达维设计

Image credit: Lillie ThompsonFrom the outset, the prospect of two French interior aficionados separated by time but brought together by colour in Australia is an intriguing one. Those familiar with the work of Pierre Bonnard and India Mahdavi may not have thought that their respective careers would be born from the same founding elements, but delve a little deeper and the similarities reveal themselves. Bonnard was a 20th-century master of colour, an appreciator of its brilliance in enlivening domestic life, landscapes and portraiture. Nearly 80 years after his passing, architect and designer Mahdavi has explored this same brilliance across the spectrum and filtered it into contemporary design, whether it’s a piece of furniture, a restaurant or resort, or— in the case of the National Gallery of Victoria’s latest Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition,Pierre Bonnard Designed by India Mahdavi—the scenography behind some of this Les Nabis artist’s most celebrated paintings.Image credit: Antoine Doyen“I think Pierre Bonnard had quite a modern approach to colour for his time—he was able to distort colours in such a way that his paintings could sometimes become abstract,” says theIranian-French designer. “He was also able to capture the ephemeral nature of light—his paintings shimmer with a radiant luminosity that seems to emanate from within, as if the colours themselves were alive. Bonnard used a bold and expressive palette, vivid hues and unexpected combinations, infusing his works with a sense of energy and vitality.”Image credit: Lillie ThompsonThe affinity between Mahdavi and Bonnard stems from an intuitive understanding of colour and emotion—the ’pure sensation of colour’—and it was a determining factor for the architect in creating the spaces to house these treasured works, many loaned from the Musée d’Orsay. “For the main part of this exhibition, we really used Bonnard’s paintings as inspirational material. We went digging into his work, selecting some of his patterns—checked, flowers or stripes—and transformed them to give them a level of abstraction,”says Mahdavi. “We created a series of wallpapers that became the backdrops for Bonnard’s ‘mise en abyme’ [placed into abyss], so to speak. We did the same with carpets, using purposely strong colours. Some of my furniture pieces are displayed throughout the exhibition, in order to give a sense of domesticity and scale. It’s like an abstraction of a home—I responded to Bonnard’s colourful world with an even more colourful one, the whole exhibition is a conversation about colour.”Image credit: Lillie ThompsonThis ‘conversation about colour’ between the pair expresses itself through bringing a joyful, revelatory quality to everyday life. “I was very interested in the domestic scale of Bonnard’s paintings, the intimacy unveiled, how he invites us to his home, how he lets us catch a glimpse of his wife in the bathroom—always with respect and discretion—and his ability to sublimate his everyday life,” says Mahdavi. “Bonnard was often described as the painter of happiness but painting ‘happiness’ doesn’t mean that one is necessarily happy—it might just be a way to escape from one’s own melancholia, one’s own nostalgia. For me, colours have become an expression. They are the light and shade... the nostalgia of a lost paradise that has always inspired me to imagine others.”Image credit: Lillie ThompsonThe challenge to create vivid spaces that elevated Bonnard’s paintings without dulling or competing with their luminosity was a unique one but a task Mahdavi was more than up for.“I’ve always loved working on scenography as I see it as a mix of two worlds: the spatial work, circulations, finding the right rhythm, and having the possibility to express a narrative in a cinematographic way,” she says. “Scenography allows things that cannot be done in real life—you can exaggerate your ideas to an extent that cannot be reached normally.”Image credit: Lillie ThompsonThe exhaustive exhibition—featuring more than 100 works by Bonnard—was originally slated for mid-2020 but, well, we all know how that story goes. According to Mahdavi, this outcome could only be achieved at the NGV. “Working with the NGV has been fantastic,” she says. “The approach to scenography is very different to European museums—the team encourages a personal point of view, and they really instigated this conversation between Bonnard and myself. As the exhibition was due in 2020, it seemed so long to wait until 2023 and I had told Tony [Ellwood, director of the NGV] that I might have to reconsider certain aspects as I didn’t know if my perception of Bonnard would have changed by then. Waiting was obviously a bit frustrating, but we are here now, and grateful that it has finally opened.”Image credit: Lillie ThompsonMahdavi’s great hope for visitors to the exhibition is that they “embark on a joyful and poetic journey. I wanted the exhibition to be as immersive as possible for visitors to understand Bonnard’s world, to understand the parallels between my world and his, not only the emotional level of colour but how we were able to converse. Bonnard was for a long time seen as a ‘bourgeois’ painter but he was, in reality, a very modern painter who really inspired Matisse. I wanted visitors to see the modernity in him. The whole exhibition is a tribute toBonnard—he influenced me from the beginning to the end.”Image credit: Antoine DoyenImage credit: Antoine DoyenImage credit: Antoine DoyenImage credit: Antoine DoyenImage credit: Lillie ThompsonImage credit: Lillie ThompsonImage credit: Lillie ThompsonImage credit: Lillie ThompsonImage credit: Antoine DoyenPierre Bonnard Designed by India Mahdaviopens at the National Gallery of Victoria on June 9.Visitngv.vic.gov.au.Want moreVogue Living?Sign up to theVogue Livingnewsletterfor your weekly dose of design news and interiors inspiration.