The birth of Asteré

First there were new wishes. It almost felt like an urge. The urge to take part, as many before us, to the orientation of one of the many ramifications of art. Fortunately, the direction we wanted to give it was obvious to us. We longed to get closer to art not in the cold of the outside world but in the warmth of our home so that we could contemplate it in a more intimate setting, more private. There was a call too. A call to discover new artists, new imaginary worlds, and to share them. We chose to work contemporary artists who define charisma in ways we bond to and met them with a challenge: using new tools to take their work to a new medium.

Wallpaper as a medium

We came with printing techniques in our hands, and a challenge for the artists. To explore them in order to expand their world to wallpaper creations.
Wallpaper could seem at first like a strange idea, but what better medium to bridge the gap between the work of renowned artists and the privacy of a house?

Élitis shared their expertise in printing

Élitis is a French high-end wallpaper editor and designer. The brand has made a name for itself by associating bold creativity and strong skills in printing, pushing forward techniques to reveal their designs.
As a generous elder sister, Élitis shared 30 years of treasured techniques with Asteré, including traditional printing, screen printing, rotogravure, and digital effects, leading to an impressive panel of processes for the artists to discover.

Shared discoveries

Wall is no small task. We spend time with each artist to second hand them in exploring how to transpose their work to the wall, see how to seize the occasion to give it new effects, new tints, new aspects.
On the way, as the artists discover new techniques, challenges to rise to and unthought-of possibilities, we keep stumbling upon innovations and new ideas too. The whole process becomes a common quest!
For instance, it takes a lot of intuition and a fair amount of trial and errors, to find out how to get a golden spark to contrast on light tints, to print with wet on wet natural pigments, to create relief or reveal a shadow… As many occasions to invent incredible effects. To let art lead technique and technique lead art, in a perfect dance.