Paolo Marcolongo: A dialogue between glass and metals
Reading Time:
1 min {{readingTime}} mins
Paolo Marcolongo is an artist with a unique and multifaceted inspiration, and one of the significant representatives of the Scuola Orafa Padovana writes Ilaria Ruggiero.
Paolo Marcolongo is an artist with a unique and multifaceted inspiration, and one of the significant representatives of the Scuola Orafa Padovana.
In his jewellery all the complexities of the numerous sculptural, artistic, philosophical and aesthetic references that characterize his creative evolution find a compendium and perfect balance.
Nature blossoms in both its sensuality and danger, on the one hand expressed by precious metals which are at times stinging, sharp, edgy, thorny, on the other in the feminine voluptuousness of the softness of glass that explodes in a tormenting struggle
for freedom: an ancestral, mythological, almost archetypal dialogue between colour, transparency, weight and form.
The craftsman articulates his personal language without any simplistic or reductive attitude, even in his most minimalistic works. Workmanship techniques belonging to the glassmaking tradition and the goldsmith's art are combined in order to achieve unique and incredible results.
The complex relationship between metals and glass develops in both the construction of the pieces and in the aesthetic results; it is confrontational and unconscious, passing
from the function of metal as a support to a constrictive and retentive element.
Needles and pins protrude from the body of the rings to retain and contain the soft shapes of the glass and the infinite potentiality of its movement. An erotic and sensual game takes place between the two entities, between the cold and rough metals and the purity of the glass that emerges.
In the objects and small sculptures, a conceptual game and an architectural interlocking of colors, weights and shapes prevail. Delicate scaffoldings draw and frame the space in minimalistic visions in which the glass is often contaminated by rust and iron, laterally positioned, to counteract the vacuum and balance the space.
His long-standing collaboration with the Masters of Murano ensures glass of the most outstanding quality.
A solo show will be held at Ingo Maurer Showroom in Munich to celebrate his latest production, during the Munich Jewellery Week (9th – 17th March).
About the Contributing Writer
Ilaria Ruggiero is a cultural manager and curator working in the field of contemporary art. She is the founder of Adornment - Curating Contemporary Art Jewelry, a curatorial integrated project dedicated to contemporary art jewelry. It aims to develop the knowledge and consciousness of contemporary jewelry as artistic discipline and as ground search for technique, aesthetics, and philosophy.
Author:
Published:
