L'Envol Art Space by Arnaud NAZARE-AGA
180 Thanon Suan Phlu, Thung Maha Mek, Sathon, Bangkok 10120
L'Envol works as a sit-down room rather than a stand-and-look gallery. Order the organic Northern Thai arabica, stay until you figure out which sculpture you want to take home, and then talk shipping. If you have one French-flavoured art afternoon to spend in this city, spend it here.
Hippos in sunglasses. Four-meter giraffe stacks, three sumo wrestlers frozen mid-ceremony, all staring back from shelves and plinths across two floors of a 350-square-meter Suan Phlu townhouse. Arnaud Nazare-Aga, born in Paris in 1965 and trained as a plasterer-moulder before founding PAJ'Art Studio in Bangkok in 2011, has filled the place with over one hundred original sculptures. Every piece is hand-built, resin cast, finished with multiple layers of hand-applied acrylic and hand-sanded lacquer. Nothing here is a print. Everything on display is for sale.
The ground floor is the Little Prince Café. The Antoine de Saint-Exupéry estate granted Nazare-Aga the only official Little Prince Café licence in the world, and the connection runs deeper than the name on the door. The coffee is 100% arabica, single-origin organic, sourced from Northern Thailand. The pastries are homemade from French and Italian recipes. Behind the gallery sits Vol de Nuit, a speakeasy bar named after Saint-Exupéry's 1931 novel of the same name. The bar carries the aviation thread through the whole property. Saint-Exupéry was a pilot, his book Vol de Nuit won the Prix Femina the year it was published, and Nazare-Aga's Little Prince sculptures are the visual through-line tying café, gallery, and bar together. Sit at the counter and the koi pond comes into view through the doorway.
The artist has weight outside this room as well.
His Sumo Totem series, three-figure stacked sculptures rising up to four meters, showed at the 2019 Venice Biennale. His Giraf'Pop collection includes pieces from tabletop up to four meters depending on commission. All of it lives here, in Sathon, on an ordinary weekday afternoon.
Suan Phlu is not a BTS-adjacent soi, so plan transit accordingly. Come Tuesday to Sunday between 10 AM and the small hours, and bring a clear afternoon.