ONLINE EXHIBITION
MATTIA BONETTI
MURANO
Murano presents new works by Mattia Bonetti exuding the artist's characteristic playfulness, the collection, handmade with the artist in Murano, pays homage to the much recognised and celebrated historical glass-blowing techniques. Time spent on the Island of Glass has profoundly influenced Bonetti’s practice, and the collection is imbued with the texture of the environment. His palette of green, gold, yellow, white and blue evokes watery reflections and huge skies, as well as the art and architecture of Venice.
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Flying Leaves’, 2020
Murano glass, gilded brass, mirror, wood structure
Leaves are such a familiar Venetian motif, often found on chandeliers, Bonetti has honoured this historical design practise by enlarging traditional leaf shapes and using them on mirrors and sconces. The classical forms and Grecian decorations of the works are a celebrated feature of Bonetti’s repertoire, also referencing the neoclassicism introduced to the Venetian Republic in the 1730s by Alessandro Pompei.
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Flying Leaves’ (Detail), 2020
MATTIA BONETTI Sconce ‘Foglia’, 2020
Murano glass, polished brass, LED
MATTIA BONETTI Table Lamp ‘Murano II’, 2020
Murano glass, nickel plated brass, silk shade
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Grate’, 2020
Console ‘Grate’, 2020
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Grate’ & Detail, 2020
Murano glass, mirror, wood structure
MATTIA BONETTI Console ‘Grate’, 2020
Murano glass, wood structure. Base: gold metal finish
For an artist as versatile as Bonetti, a single aesthetic is never enough and he brings a contemporary element to the collection with his ‘Grate’ pieces, Bonetti has taken small sticks of glass, classic Murano elements, and criss-crossed them into a modern, geometric design.
MATTIA BONETTI Table Lamp ‘Grate’, 2020
Murano glass, polished brass, wood structure
MATTIA BONETTI Table Lamp ‘Column’, 2020
Murano glass, nickel plated brass, silk shade
MATTIA BONETTI Mirrors ‘Dominos’, 2020
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Dominos’, 2020
Murano glass, mirror, wood structure
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Dominos I’, 2020
Murano glass, mirror, wood structure
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Dominos II’, 2020
Murano glass, mirror, wood structure
MATTIA BONETTI Mirror ‘Dominos III’, 2020
Murano glass, mirror, wood structure
While Bonetti has worked with glass once before, at CIRVA (Centre Internatioanal de Recherche sur le Verre et les Arts Plastique), in Marseilles, under the tutelage of maestro Lino Tagliapietra, this collection is a departure for him, requiring an unprecedented level of research. Bonetti’s fascination with the centuries-old process of free-blowing and the magic of turning a piece of glass into a molten mass before its transformation into a nuanced object, led him to Murano. Here, he was able to translate his detailed sketches, working closely with the island’s renowned artisans.
MATTIA BONETTI Side table ‘Murano’, 2020
Murano glass, wood structure
MATTIA BONETTI Table Lamp ‘Murano’, 2020
Murano glass, patinated brass, silk shade
MATTIA BONETTI Table Lamp ‘Greek (Black)’, 2020
Murano glass, nickel plated brass, silk shade
MATTIA BONETTI Table Lamp ‘Greek (Black)’, 2020
Murano glass, nickel plated brass, silk shade
About Mattia Bonetti
Mattia Bonetti (born 1952) is a Paris-based artist and designer. His work has been called whimsical, surreal and unique. Consistently merging the boundaries between art and design, Bonetti, who was born in Lugano, Switzerland, initially studied textile design at the Centro Scolastico per l’Industria Artistica. Moving to Paris in 1972, Bonetti initially worked within his chosen field of textile design, but then developed a career as a stylist and photographer. Working in black and white film, Bonetti would shoot miniature interiors that he had made by hand, which in turn led to his love of furniture. Bonetti’s work has always begun with a free-hand sketch, which is then fabricated in materials including patinated bronze, gilding, acrylic, wood, rock crystal, marble, glass and gemstones.