If you were born in Paris, raised in Provence and summered with your grandparents on the French Riviera, chances are you’d have bunches of memories stored up.

That’s certainly true for New York-based architectural designer Caroline Beaupère. To prove it, she’s got a new collection of stone, glass and marble tiles at New Ravenna. She calls it Liliane.

It’s laced with undertones of a childhood in France. “The places where my grandparents used to take us inspired me,” she says. “It’s about the colors and light and the places I used to go to all the time.”

With a sea-based palette of blues and grays, the collection can be read as a cool-but-heartfelt take on tile design. “My earlier work was architectural, but this is an emotional approach,” she says. “It’s me as a kid remembering Avignon and the Riviera – it literally is about how much that impacted my work.”

Beaupère is also a furniture designer who started to create tiles when she couldn’t find any that satisfied her own aesthetic. “These have a soul and a meaning and an emotional link to my culture,” she says. “It’s almost like I want to create a mural that’s more sophisticated than what can be found on the market.”

Mural is the operative word here. She’s not interested in laying tiles on a floor like a rug, but in the architecture of a wall – and something more stimulating than a backsplash or mosaic.

“I want it to be a mural in an enclosure, like cherry blossoms running around a tub,” she says. “I want to use tile in an artistic way – to create a visual and frame it on the wall.”

Liliane is a collection that makes Beaupère happy.

When did you last hear an artist say that?

For more, go here.

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