The Original Architecture Of Nature In Italian Mosaics

Marco de Luca. Mountain-cloud From October 8 to November 7, 2010, the III International Exhibition of Contemporary Mosaics "Architecture and Mosaics" was held at the ARTPLAY on Yauza Design Center. This time, the exhibition sounded especially vividly the theme of the architectural genius of nature, from which artists have been borrowing ideas for their works for many centuries. Apart from famous masters of Italy and Russia, children's mosaic schools from Bulgaria and Russia took part in the exhibition.

Marco de Luca (Italy)

A group of works of three mosaic-sculptural compositions ("sculpture-mosaics"). The outlines of the first object ("Mountain-cloud") are close to natural ones. A cloud balancing on top of a mountain, however, does not give the impression of an unstable composition. Two other sculptures - "Earthly and Lunar" and "Galla Placidia" have completely fantasy forms, usually unclaimed in architecture. Being completely autonomous, these works can successfully serve as complementary decorative elements of buildings and decoration of architectural spaces.

Dusana Bravura (Italy)

A large-scale installation titled "True and Only Correct Alchemy" is a modern art factory. Having selected a thousand canvases from the end of the 19th century to the present day, the author created their reproductions on glass, cut them into tesserae and, using mosaic techniques, created a new composition, attaching a gold and silver sheet to the underside, which filled the volumetric factory structures with light. Paints burst from pipes onto the floor and fill the space around. This "industrial enterprise" demonstrates how Art manages to implement true alchemy and achieve its ultimate goal - to transform matter into GOLD. At the end of the route through the essence and spirit of art, the visitor sees an installation of a copy of Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain", and underneath, unexpectedly, a urinal for collecting the precious "golden" liquid.This work is a reflection of alchemy as "spagyric art", translated from Greek means "separation and connection into a single whole."

Marco Bravura (Italy)

Marco Bravura. Gold nests

The installation "Golden Nests" was created as a tribute to the genius of nature. The author says that “… nature is an architectural project that strictly adheres to aesthetic principles, but is based on stability and functionality. As for the roots of Nature and architecture, I cannot help but admire the perfection of the technical design, whose age is estimated at millions of years - this is the design of a bird's nest. My Golden Nests are conceived as a tribute to the intelligence, hard work and creativity of the birds, these "original architects". … Whenever I come across a bird's nest, I always admire its simple, natural and at the same time sometimes very complex and sophisticated architectural work, invested in its creation. With his installation of gold, light and sound, made up of six nests hung on the branches of trees, where the pillar of light is a metaphor for a tree trunk,I want to evoke the same feelings in the audience. " Bird nests are similar to real nests of blackbird warbler, weaver, stork, nightingale, long-tailed tit, mountain swallow. Optical fibers lowered to the floor are like the roots of a tree.

Verdiano Marzi (Italy)

Even at the dawn of its history, mankind was very well aware of its place in the Universe, in space. For this author, nature is an inexhaustible source of creativity. The installation "Universe" includes several works united by reflections on space - "Day Flight", "Night Flight", "Petals of the Moon", "Lunar Metamorphoses", "Hot Dawn", "Red Moon", "Brina". In the next series of works dedicated to roses ("White Petal", "Behind the Door", "Rose") - admiration for this most beautiful of flowers, and the triptych "Rosary" provides an opportunity to plunge into the charm of the Mediterranean rose garden. The cycle "Seasons" is presented very unexpectedly - after a golden autumn and a snowy winter, spring comes with the night shine of white petals and the sultry twilight of a hot summer. Everything is explained by the words of the author: “… for me the Universe, space and seasons are endlessly fascinating.They make me dream and fantasize. My actions are dictated by my daily relationship with them. "

Pelagia Angelopolo (Italy)

Pelagia Angelopole. Untitled

The large-scale installation "Temple of Nature" is designed to show the inner, natural beauty in a new visual aspect, as well as to awaken the awareness of environmental values. “Most of my works feature trees … Their trunks are perfectly constructed sculptures; I learn from them and they inspire me … The trunks of trees reveal their age, their life full of events, they keep the memory of everything that they have witnessed over the years. The sound of the wind in the foliage, delightful shadows and the silence of day and night turn trees into guardians of time and space. And birds, these beautiful creatures! With an endless variety of colors, bodies ideally created for flight that go beyond science and art. Birds are symbols of freedom, messengers of the time and seasons. The sun, the deity of many ancient civilizations, giving the earth light, warmth and life …"

The temple of nature consists of six parts. Four with images of the sun and trees surround the iconostasis - a square composition of 12 birds representing 12 months of the year. In the center - a pair of depths, personifying the harmony of masculine and feminine principles. The images of ancient icons were brought by birds from endless travels around the world. In the center of the installation there is a sanctuary, a glass cage to catch birds and sacrifice their freedom. Above is the "Sacred Book", which tells the myths and secrets of Nature.

The work is done in a mixed mosaic technique with collage elements, where the graceful details of small tesserae are opposed to large stones and crystals.

Nane Zavane (Italy)

Nane Zavanye. Modular rhythms in black and platinum

The poetic essence of the works of this author lies in the intuitive relationship with nature, which gives the artist a primacy of perception and at the same time makes him carefully work on the form. Nature bursts into the artist's house through huge windows, and the spiral staircase in the center, leading to his studio, also serves as a metaphor for his path in art. The feeling of being inside, in the center, can be the key to correctly interpreting his art. This idea is best suited to the composition "Stones", which has two opposing sides - white and black. "Modular rhythms in black and platinum", made of white pebbles and colored stones, reflects the rhythm of development and natural phenomena.

Giulio Candussio (Italy)

Giullio Candussio can be called a master of texture. The "calm" forms of his work are combined with the explosive nature of bright, complex, exciting colors. Tiny mosaic tiles fold into repeating graphic symbols to create the illusion of a three-dimensional appearance. The "Fiery Sun" is balanced by the reverse side - the "Ice Moon". The author achieves an even greater illusory simplification of the image in the work "Untitled".

Alexander Korchuganov (Russia)

Alexander Korchuganov. Node 1

The artist's credo is the search for a volumetric-spatial solution of mosaics, inextricably linked with the architectural environment. Its knots in color and black and white are a clear confirmation of this.

Group САСО3 (Italy)

Constantly studying the forms of traditional ancient mosaics and the forms of nature with their organic structure, the members of the group in their works were inspired by the visual effect produced by a stationary or moving set, masses, streams, processions, based on models of urban agglomerations or biological colonies, where an individual element does not become invisible part of the surface, on the contrary, stands out due to the action of formal "harmonic contrast" with other parts. The series of compositions "Movement", with a huge number of options, differ in the used material and the effect of contrast between the main surface and the angle of inclination of the tessera tiles. These works demonstrate that depicting space and "creating" light can be achieved without the aid of light variations,only by using the contrast between different angles of inclination of the tiles and correlating the infinitely small and infinitely large.

ARTPLACE studio (Russia)

ARTPLACE studio. Pen

A young studio of modern mosaics, operating in Moscow for a little over a year, has been working with traditional techniques and materials, but has already shown its own style, allowing us to speak about a new direction in modern mosaic - "mosaic graphics".

In addition to the works of famous masters, the exhibition presented mosaic works of the Children's Mosaic School Encho and Raina Rachevs in Burgas (Bulgaria) and a mosaic Sunday school under the leadership of the clergyman and teacher Dmitry Kotov in Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region, where children from 4 years old.

Bright and direct works of children told about nature, flora and fauna, fairy-tale characters and the happy life of people.

Photo: Rita Brilliantova