Back when people smoked cigarettes and drank martinis with no awareness of negative consequences, James Mont was designing outrageous living rooms with sofas covered in exquisite densely textured fabrics and furniture with complex surfaces piled with layers of tinted lacquers and gold and silver leaf.

This exhibition will bring you into a living room of the future set in the past and the gallery will be divided into three segments, all containing arrangements of c.1950 vintage furniture designed by James Mont amidst appropriately themed patterned backdrops of custom wallpaper designed by Este Lewis.

The Three Segments:

1) Full-length mirror, sofa, end table and coffee table (adorned with Mickalene Thomas’ bronze sculpture “Brawlin’ Spitfire Wrestlers”) surrounded by the rich color and texture of natural sponges, simultaneously blending with and leaping from the earthy tones and glossy sheen of the furniture.

2) A Baby grand piano bar emanating from the center of a wall covered in a checkerboard-patterned geometric grid of Ziploc bags (a 1950’s invention) containing separations of various condiments commonly found in or beside a martini glass. The overall composition will create another planet for the martini to exist on- where the condiments become creatures and the checkerboard evokes a bizarre game of chess in an exotic world to drink up and play in.

3) A highly decorative lamp installation featuring a gold leaf butterfly motif in which the scene bleeds through the lamp onto the walls using gold foil from chocolate bars and butterfly stickers creating a mystical gathering that brings you closer to the light.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1983, Este Lewis has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from SUNY Purchase. Group exhibitions of her work include White Box Gallery; “Yummy: A Show About Food”
 Nexus/Foundation for Today’s Art, Philadelphia, PA; Seventh Biennial Exhibition (Curated by Cornelia Butler, MoMA) A.I.R. Gallery, NY, NY. Her public wallpaper installations are on permanent view at The Shala Yoga Studio and at Plan B Bar. Lewis’s wallpaper art has been featured in many magazines that include House Beautiful, Time Out, New York Magazine (“Best Bets”), and Details Magazine. Internationally, her work has appeared in Grazia Magazine Middle East, and Canada’s The Globe and Mail. Este Lewis lives and works in New York City.