Lapidea
Clay is a plastic material, which for millennia has been molded, imprinted, casted to make products or artefacts.
My current practice investigates the qualities of clay as a material and transforms the craft making in a sedimentary process, accumulating, mixing and aggregating instead of modelling.
Clay is brought back to a mineral state. Inspiration comes from rocks and stones. Some of them are assembled by long term sediment accumulation. Some others have a volcanic origin, modified by high temperatures. It is approximately the same process occurring in the kiln. Clay waste and semi-finished products for construction are mixed, recycling all parts, nothing is lost, everything is changed.
Works are fired and patiently sanded in order to highlight the random beauty of the assemblages and making them look like fantastic stones. Clay becomes stone and suddenly terrazzo or palladiana, imitating the traditional construction techniques and challenging their own limits. Inside the boundaries of ceramics crafting, the designer-maker constantly transfers references and techniques, basic materials and products, inspirations and results, inputs and outputs.
