I love it when art is able to come off of the walls and create its own centre stage and spotlight. Some pieces do that figuratively with their strength of presence and story. Others do so more literally, combining art and architecture and merging with the world of design in inspiring yet unexpected ways. Such is the spectacular work of French artist Zoé Ouvrier and her decadent wood-carved screens.

Born in Montpellier, France, Ouvrier studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. With nature as her muse, Zoé uses traditional methods derived from book and scroll making to engrave natural materials with strikingly fantasy-like woodland motifs. Plywood becomes elevated from the commonplace to the sublime in the caring and skilled hands of Ouvrier, and the results are nothing short of breathtaking.

The scale of her works is expansive, like set designs exquisitely crafted for the dramatic and tender moments of life. The perfect way to define a living or dining room in an open loft space, for example, one needs no wardrobe to escape into Narnia now. Ouvrier has provided all the entrée one needs into the vivid and detailed world of the imagination.