The Jury is asked to particularly favour works that engage with the overarching theme of Italian beauty and successfully show the connection between manual skill and creativity, placing a contemporary spin on antiquated and complex traditional techniques.
A centerpiece plate in Murano glass slab made by hand in matt black using a fused glass technique on plants. The work derives from the artist’s desire to combine two great passions: the mountains and glass. The plants selected for the work and collected during excursions survive at an altitude of over 2,000m, where the air is almost transparent, like glass.
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"Giardino fiorito” is a work of ceramic art made by hand in stoneware and decorated with high-temperature enamels from a composition deriving from the artist’s own lengthy personal research. The vase contains and divides the interior from the exterior. The object of the vase thus symbolizes a new-found relationship with Nature via the dream of a “paradise lost”.
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"Giardino dorato” is a decorative panel created in lightly marbled "scagliola" in ivory-white tones. The design is inspired by an oriental atmosphere and the chinoiserie style; it is embellished by flowers, leaves, small birds, and butterflies in flight and made with the graffito technique, reinterpreted here in a contemporary key by adding gold leaf to recall the precious bounty of Nature.
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"L’Origine” is a mosaic work inspired by the landscape of the Tagliamento river. The table’s steel and polystyrene substructure is entirely covered in stones, marble tiles, and gold. The stones, small but wonderfully patient and fantastical works of nature, are placed without direction and in lightly nuanced tones to accentuate the softness and naturalness of the form.
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"Kormòs”, from the Greek κορμός (tree trunk) is a vase made in unglazed slip-cast biscuit porcelain. Accustomed to admiring art as the triumph of human technique and creativity, we often forget that Nature is not only a muse but itself an artist.The artist’s task is to capture the hidden forms in matter, the sculptural appeal of these organic debris, and breathe new life into them through ancient techniques and their own sensibility.
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“Lady bug” is a box whose lid opens and divides into two parts, simulating the movement of a ladybird’s wings. It is made in turned solid walnut and decorated with small ebony inserts that form an ascending geometric motif. The interior is subdivided into compartments with the squared section at its centre closed by a leather-lined lid with a bronzed brass knob that fits perfectly into the upper lid, to remain visible.
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"Aequorea” in kaolin clay, is composed of two centrepieces, that are similar in form but distinct in their internal colouration. The first piece is opaque white, with the natural colour of the raw material taking centre stage, in contrast to a second piece inspired by the colours of the seabed and bursting with purple-red details.
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“Mediterraneo”, inspired by the elegance and splendour of Byzantine mosaics and ancient Asian techniques using coloured porcelain, is a work in three pieces connected by a common theme: the world of the seabed. The work was made using the Nerikomi technique: a mosaic composed of pigmented porcelain tiles.
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A cabinet assembled with pins and loose tenon joints; the doors, in walnut, ash and cherry, to create a design with a three-dimensional effect which comes purely from the natural colour of the three woods. Primitivo aims to distort geometric and natural lines and take inspiration from a still wild or untamed Nature.
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The “Bark” tray, made entirely from brass sheets, is inspired by the delicate and hypnotic weaving of a spider web formed on the bark of a fallen tree. The bowl’s outer surface is hand engraved with bronzed veining and rests on a net of brass wires. The work’s starting point is the concept of an emptied Nature held together by a wire.
