Developed exclusively for Saint Laurent, the Paris End project takes its title from the local term for the store’s location – a district referred to as the “Paris End” of Collins Street.

The exhibition centers around two triptychs of arcade architecture titled Paris End. These monochromatic paintings are mounted on a group of metal armatures that intersect the Saint Laurent store interior, forming a cluster of towers across two floors. The ground floor opens with an inverted arch installed above the shop display vitrines and receding into the distance. The series continues on the first floor with a reversed version of the triptych, bringing the two hemispheres into a global whole.

The triptychs are a play of mirroring, a reduced geometry both flattened and made three-dimensional. The paintings can be seen from all sides, presenting a backstage view of the process of their production.

Upstairs the VIP salon hosts the final work in the show, titled Melbourne End. This oil painting of a solitary character perched between two walls of an ambiguous landscape offers a figurative counterpart to the formal works below.

“The cleaved sphere of the Paris skylights are both elemental protection and a glass ceiling … these hemispheres return as the duelling walls of a ravine.

The Paris End project follows some thinking about the links and disruptions between cities, a notion of split geography and a fragmented globe.” Thomas Jeppe

Born and raised in Australia, Thomas Jeppe is a Paris-based painter and writer. Through his works, Jeppe explores themes of cultural production and subjectivity. He has shown in leading contemporary galleries and institutions, and curated exhibition projects in Basel, Hamburg, Vienna and Paris.

The “Paris End” exhibition will be on display from May 19 to June 9 in the Saint Laurent 80 Collins store.