Advertisement
U.S. markets closed
  • S&P 500

    5,254.35
    +5.86 (+0.11%)
     
  • Dow 30

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • Nasdaq

    16,379.46
    -20.06 (-0.12%)
     
  • Russell 2000

    2,124.55
    +10.20 (+0.48%)
     
  • Crude Oil

    83.11
    -0.06 (-0.07%)
     
  • Gold

    2,254.80
    +16.40 (+0.73%)
     
  • Silver

    25.10
    +0.18 (+0.74%)
     
  • EUR/USD

    1.0793
    0.0000 (-0.00%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.2060
    +0.0100 (+0.24%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2636
    +0.0013 (+0.11%)
     
  • USD/JPY

    151.2210
    -0.1510 (-0.10%)
     
  • Bitcoin USD

    69,466.82
    -1,921.98 (-2.69%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • FTSE 100

    7,952.62
    +20.64 (+0.26%)
     
  • Nikkei 225

    40,369.44
    +201.37 (+0.50%)
     

These Designers Are Creating a New Gold (Leaf) Standard

When Lisa Donohoe founded Los Angeles–based Londubh Studio (pronounced “lon-dove”) in 2011, she and her partner, Brynn Gelbard, knew they wanted it to be something bigger than just a local decorative painting firm. “Surfaces are ultimately canvases for expression,” explains Gelbard. “Through the convergence of art and design, we have the opportunity to transform generic spaces and elevate the human experience.”

A custom exterior poolside mural with 23-karat gold leaf detail designed by Londubh Studio for Line Lofts with Gulla Jónsdóttir.

Londubh5

A custom exterior poolside mural with 23-karat gold leaf detail designed by Londubh Studio for Line Lofts with Gulla Jónsdóttir.
Photo: Sarina Saletta

Over the last few years, their work—painstakingly ornate 2D surfaces that include everything from building façades to diving boards, often electrified by gold leaf—has been showcased at serious design exhibitions like Salone del Mobile in Milan, the Wattles Mansion Designer Showcase, and La Cienega Design Quarter LEGENDS. Having also had their work enliven the backdrops of projects featured in AD, the ladies have been a sort of under-the-radar secret weapon for top interior designers. Now, however, they’ve come into view as a design-world staple.

“I met them at an event in West Hollywood and was immediately taken by their beautiful plaster art installation,” says designer Gulla Jónsdóttir. “When I was planning my collaborative show at Salone del Mobile, I was sitting at the bar at Gracias Madres thinking about who to invite…and as I look up, there they are sitting at the bar across from me. So I took it as a sign.”

Donohoe, who grew up in Dublin, was an artist before she was anything else. “I was very influenced by the cultural history of Ireland,” she says. “Celtic art and medieval art and architecture is everywhere you look—whether you’re in the city or country. It’s a link to the past I could really tap into.” Londubh, in fact, is the word for “blackbird” in Irish, and denotes an affinity for both the texture and the metallic black and green hues of its feathers.

In 1995, after a few years studying business management at college in Dublin, Donohoe moved to San Francisco. “I was 21 years old, creating art—mostly pen-and-ink illustrations inspired by Celtic design and Irish culture—and doing my own thing in a very inspiring city,” she recalls. Soon she got a job with Willem Racké Studio: “I worked there for five years—I started at the bottom learning all the techniques.”

While apprenticing and training at Racké’s studio, Donohoe had the opportunity to work on a number of high-end residential and commercial projects for top designers like Ken Fulk, Jay Jeffers, and Peter Marino, and became intrigued by materials like 24- and 23-karat gold, leather, inlaid plasters, natural waxes, and glazes, and how they could be used in different ways. “When I started Londubh Studio, I was determined to experiment more and push the boundaries of materials that have been used for hundreds and thousands of years,” Donohoe says.

Brynn Gelbard and Lisa Donohoe mid-process at an event in their downtown L.A. studio.

Londubh2

Brynn Gelbard and Lisa Donohoe mid-process at an event in their downtown L.A. studio.
Photo courtesy Londubh Studio

Gelbard, her partner in this exploration—and in life—grew up in New York and attended Bowdoin College, where she majored in environmental studies and psychology, and minored in biology. “I spent a lot of time in the outdoors, marveling and thinking about sustainability and how to preserve the natural environment,” she says. After graduating in 1999, Gelbard moved to San Francisco, where she met Donohoe. With a strong background in writing, she worked passionately on documentaries focused on the fight for LGBTQ rights, produced some independent queer cinema, and worked for several mainstream production companies.

When the pair moved to Los Angeles in 2009, their collaboration really began. “Lisa and I worked together on several projects—usually I produced and she was a production designer,” remembers Gelbard. “Sometimes on film jobs, I’d work as her assistant,” she laughs. “Because she didn’t have a driver’s license at the time, I’d drive her to the sets so she wouldn’t lose the work! We learned quickly how much fun we had working together.”

Londubh Studio's “Feathers” screen and "Spread your Wings and Fly" floor installation as part of Gulla Jónsdóttir's show at Salone del Mobile 2017.

Londubh1

Londubh Studio's “Feathers” screen and "Spread your Wings and Fly" floor installation as part of Gulla Jónsdóttir's show at Salone del Mobile 2017.
Photo: Sarina Saletta

By 2011, the year she founded Londubh, Donohoe was already thinking ahead, and enrolled in the University of California, Los Angeles’s two-year interior design and architecture program. “I knew most of our clients would be interior designers,” she explains. “I wanted to be able to communicate with them on their level, understand their client’s needs, and learn how to best serve the architecture of a space.”

That understanding paid off. Today Londubh’s clientele is a healthy mix of interior design clients and private commissions—many of whom discovered them on Instagram, or through word of mouth. “Los Angeles can be a small town,” explains Jamie Bush, the L.A.-based designer responsible for reimagining architect Frank Wynkoop’s 1951 Butterfly House last year in Carmel, California. Bush tapped Londubh to restore the original brick façade. “I knew their work on the façade restoration of Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown L.A., which had to withstand the exposure, so I knew they understood how to treat the finish to stand up to the elements of the harsh sea weather.”

The pair’s approach also can compel designers to design around their work. “Lisa and Brynn contacted me when they found out that I was participating in LEGENDS [earlier] this year, says Sasha Bikoff, of New York-based Sasha Bikoff Interior Design. “I wasn’t familiar with their work at the time, but once I saw it, I changed the direction of my window design to accommodate their work.”

The appreciation was mutual. The ladies of Londubh had been following Bikoff since they saw a staircase she designed for Kips Bay Show House 2018. As they embarked on the LEGENDS project together—a pair of ‘80s-inspired Art Deco revival screens— Bikoff instructed, “don’t reign it in.” For one of the screens, “Greased Lightning,” they incorporated a floral motif of unusual pink hand-dyed silver leaf prepared by artists in Japan. “We wanted to express our passion,” Gelbard explains of their attention to detail. “The leopard print took 20 hours to paint—not including the gold leafing, and it took 19 hours to stipple just the borders.”

Their work is also currently on display in San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum as part of its Masterpiece Moments exhibition series. “We were initially contacted by wHY Architects, the firm working on the museum’s remodel,” says Donohoe. “We chose the color for the backdrops to an installation of Burmese thrones and other objects—they wanted it to feel as though it had been there for a long time.”

Londubh Studio's vibrant "Greased Lightening" screen—made in collaboration with Sasha Bikoff—features gold leaf, acrylic paint, and hand-dyed pink silver leaf on panels.

Londubh3

Londubh Studio's vibrant "Greased Lightening" screen—made in collaboration with Sasha Bikoff—features gold leaf, acrylic paint, and hand-dyed pink silver leaf on panels.
Photo: Sarina Saletta

The resulting work, an opulent setting highlighting the brilliance of historic gold objects , was inspired by patterns found in traditional Burmese palaces and temples. “We had a lot of fun testing colors and contrasts to ensure it was rich and eye-catching but not overpowering,” says Forrest McGill, the curator responsible for the exhibition. “They’re real artists.”

Last year, Londubh moved into a sprawling ’30s-era warehouse in downtown L.A. with timber roof trusses that soar some 30 feet high. “Every now and then, someone stops by for a studio visit and recalls coming here for raves in the ’90s,” says Gelbard. The duo revamped the space with painted concrete floors, decorative plaster walls (specifically their gold-polished “snakeskin” finish) a few decorative screens and art pieces. “It’s an urban luxury mishmash, featuring our work and the work of our local artisan friends,” adds Donohoe.

Among other projects, the duo has recently completed campaign backdrops for Dita von Teese’s new lingerie collection, Vedette, launching in March 2020, and an installation for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab interpreting satellite images in custom decorative plasters and gold and copper leaf. Currently they’re hard at work planning an Art Deco mural for the side of a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska; a series of painted floors for an L.A. loft project; and several residential commissions on a myriad of surfaces. “If it will stay still long enough, we’ll paint on it,” laughs Donohoe.

Thankfully, Londubh Studio shows no intention of slowing down.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

Advertisement