The artwork hanging on the walls of Kristjana S Williams’ house pales beside the walls themselves: there are giant murals featuring tropical birds, oversized leaves, green vistas, and ferns that snake up from floor height to the ceiling. Cocooning one stairwell is a kaleidoscopic wallpaper of thistles, zebras and deer against a striped background; a smaller staircase has an eye-popping geometric pattern, dotted with flowers. And her young children’s bedroom is wrapped in a wooded landscape of fantastical apelike creatures, reminiscent of Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. Framed cases of butterflies and mounted animal heads complete the bestial look.
It all sounds rather intense, but high ceilings, pale paintwork and the more traditional elements of this 17th-century stone building – terracotta tiled floors, original panelling – tone down the excess.
Williams, an Icelandic artist and designer known for her bold prints, has spent the summer in this quiet corner of southern France, swapping London and lockdown for lake swimming and picnics. “The adjustment [to lockdown] was so hard at first, but without my day-to-day meetings, it ended up being a very creative time. Being in France has been wonderful,” she says. “Everything is 300 times calmer here. It’s a big wine region, and we have figs, olive trees, dragonflies. Nature has a restorative power, and I’ve really felt that here.”
She started searching for a house in the area while working on a bespoke artwork for a client in Barcelona. “I’d take trips across the border to scope out the villages in the Languedoc-Roussillon area,” she says. “It is so beautiful: you have the Pyrenees as a backdrop and all these vineyards, lakes and medieval cities, such as Toulouse and Carcassonne. Lots of artists have relocated here.”
She discovered the three-storey house, a run-down former shop that had been empty for six years, in 2017. Three siblings had inherited it and wanted rid of it. The house has a “maze-like” floorplan: a kitchen, dining room, and three small living rooms downstairs, and four bedrooms on the upper floors. Outside, is a large walled garden, with two highly-scented yellow fig trees, and a large dining area.
Williams spent a year renovating it, driving back and forth between France and her home in London. “I loved its character, its high ceilings, and the feel of the village,” says Williams. It needed a lot of basic work, including rewiring and plumbing.
As for the decor, she wanted a home “where my imagination could run wild”, she says. “I felt I could really let loose with my prints in this light, rural environment.” She found inspiration in books and Victorian engravings. The murals were designed back at home “on a huge scale, with a 4m repeating pattern, which I thought would work beautifully with the high ceilings”.
On her drives, Williams discovered a petrol station nearby, the forecourt always packed with cars at lunchtime. “It turns out, it served lunch to all the locals, so I’d join the workmen and the farmers for a three-course lunch: couscous lamb, chicken and sausage dishes, cake and espresso for dessert.”
Most of the furniture was either already in the house – such as the large cupboard which she painted lime green – or discovered at antiques markets both in France and the UK. A pair of floral wall panels, various mirrors, antique framed maps and some antlers are from Sunbury Market at Kempton Racecourse. Williams also shopped at high street favourites, including Zara Home, made.com and Anthropologie; a pair of clocks is from Ikea, and a dog lamp is from Abigail Ahern.
Williams is launching a new interiors collection in September: more larger scale wall murals like the ones in her French home, as well as wallpapers, cushions and fabrics. She has also created a book and merchandise to accompany the V&A Museum’s forthcoming show on Alice in Wonderland, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, scheduled for March 2021.
Her love of the natural world is informed by her homeland. “Icelandic nature is exceptionally beautiful but it’s quite stark, and the weather is harsh. So I grew up fantasising about exotic places and creatures, such as bumblebees, butterflies, flamingoes. They seemed like magic to me, and they’re still at the foundation of everything I do.”
