Ecology & urbanity
Reconnect city, human beings and nature through a gentle, accessible visual language.
NATHALIE AUZÉPY · PUBLIC ART
LES FEUILLES DE VILLE
CITY LEAVES
Paris · Brussels · Kyoto · Chaudfontaine · New York · Grand Rapids · and beyond
CITY + NATURE
An iconic identity: the map of a city woven into the structure of a leaf.
Each City Leaf combines an emblematic vegetal form with the plan of a city, territory or neighbourhood. The work moves between urban design and art, between singular local identity and a universal serial language.
For Paris, the point of departure is the chestnut leaf and the map of Paris. The concept is infinitely adaptable: another city, another nature, another cartography, another materiality.
ARCHITECTURE OF SHADOW & LIGHT
The City Leaf is suspended in its own shadow.
Visual diffractions orchestrated by the interplay of shadow and light fragment the gaze, drawing the eye into this urban moucharabieh, whose unfolding forms and optical effects echo cartographic imagery.
Nature, at once powerful and fragile, envelops the city in a subtle process of unfolding. Like a madeleine de Proust, it evokes memories of chestnut leaves fallen in schoolyards in autumn, whose soft parts we would peel away to reveal their hidden structures.
Everything is structure — from the tiniest molecule to the universe as a whole. Rather than opposing them, this new perception invites urban and vegetal structures to intertwine and converge, coexisting in harmony to form a new, unified and benevolent Whole.
Emptiness absorbs fullness, and shadows — intensified by shifts in perspective — take precedence over material form. The Urban Leaf is suspended above its own calculated shadow so that, at a precise moment in the annual cycle, the real shadow merges with the metallic one traced on the ground.
The result is a symbolic and sensitive architectural gesture that becomes a landscaped garden. The leaf yields to the elements, orienting itself with the wind. By integrating external parameters into the work, Nathalie Auzépy creates an artwork that functions as a living whole: interactive and fully embedded in its environment.
It offers a sensory experience that invites both contemplation and movement.
PUBLIC ART AS “USEFUL ART”
Re-enchant the city through art and design.
Citizenship & public life
Create places of meeting, movement, exchange and shared appropriation in public space.
Positive emotion
Bring beauty, comfort, identity and a non-disruptive visual pleasure back into everyday urban life.
Collective cultural capital
Make contemporary art accessible beyond galleries and contribute to the cultural and spatial value of a territory.
Quality of life becomes quality of city.
AN EVOLVING CONCEPT
Sculpture · Façade · Digital
Monumental urban sculpture
An iconic work linked to a city’s identity and citizens, conceived for squares, gardens and public spaces.
Façade / street-art version
The cartographic leaf can migrate onto architecture through translucent, mirror or graphic interventions.
Interactive & digital City Leaf
A digital and interactive version can connect citizens to cultural places, gardens and key urban information.
A CORPUS ACROSS CITIES
Public works, acquisitions and international variations.
PARIS
Musée Carnavalet
Outdoor presentation of Feuille de Ville Paris 02.
PARIS / NANTERRE
Vinci Headquarters
Private / corporate acquisition of Feuille de Ville Paris 01.
BRUSSELS
Brussels-Capital Region
Public acquisition and inauguration.
WOLUWE-SAINT-PIERRE
Public acquisition
Commission / acquisition by the municipality.
WOLUWE-SAINT-LAMBERT
Public acquisition · Winter view
A City Leaf in the public landscape, shown here under snow.
CHAUDFONTAINE / LIÈGE
Public acquisition
City Leaf integrated into a landscaped setting.
GRAND RAPIDS · USA
ArtPrize
Project recognised through a foundation award / grant in Grand Rapids.
KYOTO
Japanese paper & metal
Interior sculptural variation in Japanese paper and metal.
NEW YORK
Wood series
Framed interior City Leaf variation based on New York cartography.
PARIS · PORCELAIN
Limoges porcelain
Collectible Paris City Leaf in porcelain.
PARIS · WOOD
Framed wood series
A framed interior interpretation of the Paris cartography in wood.
SINGAPORE
International presentation
City Leaves presented in an interior exhibition context.
FROM MONUMENT TO COLLECTIBLE SCULPTURE
Metal, porcelain, wood and Japanese paper.
Limoges porcelain
Porcelain biscuit with white, gold-leaf or chrome-silver glazing on an oak base. Reference format: H 50 × W 35 × D 15 cm.
Wood
Red gum, walnut or maple City Leaves, framed in oak behind anti-reflective glass.
Mirror-polished metal
Monumental versions in mirror-polished stainless steel with matte black epoxy-painted steel elements.
Japanese paper & metal
A lighter interior interpretation developed for the Kyoto variation.
PARIS · COLLECTIBLE EDITIONS
Porcelain and wood: the City Leaf at an intimate scale.
PRICE GUIDE
From collectible City Leaves to monumental public commissions.
Prices vary according to city, dimensions, materials, finish, engineering, fabrication and site-specific development.
WOOD · COLLECTIBLE
Small framed City Leaf
from USD 7,000
Framed wood versions developed from the cartography of a city.
METAL · INTERIOR
Metal City Leaf on base
from USD 11,500
Freestanding interior version on a base, conceived for galleries, hotels, institutions, companies and private collections.
METAL + SHADOW · 1.60 M
City Leaf with projected / calculated shadow
from €25,000
Approximately 1.60 m high, with the shadow becoming an integral part of the artwork and its relationship to the site.
METAL + SHADOW · 2.30 M
Large-scale City Leaf
€40,000–€70,000
Around 2.30 m high. Final price depends on cartography, finish, structural requirements, site and fabrication.
MONUMENTAL PUBLIC COMMISSION
Monumental City Leaf — up to approx. 4.5 m
from €700,000
Large-scale site-specific commissions integrating bespoke cartography, engineering, fabrication, structural studies and landscape / architectural integration.
Transport and installation are not included.
All prices are starting indications and are confirmed by quotation according to the final scope of each project.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Museums, fairs and public presentation.
Musée Carnavalet, Paris · YIA Art Fair, Paris & Brussels · Pavillon Davioud / Sénat, Paris · Urban Space / Galerie Yoni, Brussels
PUBLIC & PRIVATE ACQUISITIONS
A work already embedded in cities and collections.
Vinci headquarters, Nanterre · Brussels-Capital Region · Chaudfontaine / Liège · Woluwe-Saint-Lambert · Woluwe-Saint-Pierre · Grand Rapids, USA · City of Kyoto · private collectors.
SITE-SPECIFIC COMMISSIONS
A City Leaf can be conceived on request for any new city, institution, company, development or public place.
The species of leaf, cartography, scale, material, shadow system and relationship to the site can all be developed as part of a new original commission.
Discuss a City Leaf commission