Galerie Gastou presents Omar Chakil

During PAD Paris, April 2-6 2025, Paris-based Galerie Gastou highlighted a new body of work by Omar Chakil, whose creations blend craftsmanship, art and design. This marks Chakil’s first time with the Galerie, with an exciting series that embodies cross-culturalism.

French Egyptian Lebanese former singer/songwriter, creative consultant, interior designer, product designer and artist Omar ‘Chakil’ El Wakil briefly studied design at Milan’s DOMUS academy but defines himself as self-taught. Omar is a natural esthete who tries to bridge a variety of cultural gaps through his creative practice. After decorating private homes around the globe for nearly two decades, Omar started experimenting with limited edition objects and furniture. With over 20 years of experience in design, Chakil’s work with Egyptian alabaster, an endemic material once used in heritage crafts, is here; reinvented through contemporary aesthetics, while still drawing on the rich heritage of Egypt through his personal interpretation of matter and shape.
Chakil’s sculptural design pieces use organic lines, showcasing the beauty and versatile nature of the stone while paying homage to its ancient legacy through singularly modern esthetics that bridge multi-cultural heritage.
For the event, Victor Gastou, was inspired by Ancient Egypt and its unique afterlife rituals. Pharaohs would surround themselves with their finest possessions for their final journey. This vision guided architect Matthieu Poirier-Lauvin in designing an immersive space with a clean aesthetic, evoking the monumental architecture of Ancient Egypt.
The new 17-piece series, with the theme, ‘Transcendence’ uniting the diverse works, encapsulates a unique dialogue between East and West, past and present, sacred and contemporary.
The pieces present Ancient Egyptian animal deities seen through a modern lens. Whether mimicking the fossilized tail of a Nile crocodile, scanned from a life-size reptile, in Egyptian alabaster quartz crystals for the ‘Sobek Bench’, or carving to ‘Uraeus Birth Chairs’, crowned by upright, open-hood cobras, these Ancient Egyptian symbols shine in a new light.
Despite alabaster onyx being endemic to Egypt, used by Pharaohs for its stunning translucent qualities. It fell out of fashion in the modern era and had become overlooked as a local material in favor of imported marbles.
When Chakil moved back to Egypt from France in 2019, he researched the trajectory of the material’s usage to understand why it was no longer being used – even the ‘alabaster’ souvenirs at the souks were sometimes made in China and not real alabaster which led to him bringing this once-revered material back to life, producing his works in Egypt, from raw massive blocks of Egyptian alabaster onyx, bringing the stone back to its original glory.
His work has already impacted the local scene where Egyptian alabaster is now used by various designers and creatives.
During PAD Paris, Galerie Gastou also exhibited works by Shiro Kuramata, John Dickinson, André Dubreuil, René Prou, Philippe Hiquily, Emmanuel Babled and Quentin Vuong.