The fourth episode of Face to face is dedicated to Simona Sporchia, a master in the contemporary interpretation of the mosaic. Growing up in Milan, Simona was one of those little girls who always carried her sketchbook with her. She portrayed people, landscapes, and nature. Every chance she got, she’d arm herself with coloured pencils and give free rein to her imagination.
The artistic high school represented a natural landing place at the end of middle school. Simona discovered a passion for colours and materials; artistic techniques are the foundation for finding her expressive language.

She continued her studies at the Faculty of Architecture, but her heart was elsewhere: Simona felt the need to shape her thoughts with her hands, to return to her old love for a less icy and reasoned material. «I feel like art is a calling,» she says. She remembers the power of certain mosaic masterpieces she studied in school. It is where her inner gaze is focused. She drops out of university and enrolls in a mosaic school to learn the technique; she becomes a master mosaicist and opens her own workshop in Monza.

The encounter with Paola Lenti occurs during the first lockdown’s silence. They worked by assonance in that suspended atmosphere; in the warp and weft of the collection’s fabrics, they captured the same foundations of the mosaic composition: tesserae and joints, while intertwining and matching, create a decoration, just like the threads woven on the loom Furthermore, both realized that the combination of more shades determines the final colour equally in the mosaic and the company fabrics.

Together, they decide to subvert the traditional mosaic technique to create tesserae with different shapes and dimensions, round for example; they strip the joint of its function as a “hinge” to make it a background that recalls the chromatic palette of the collection products with which it is combined.

A new and contemporary vision of the mosaic emerges, where even the materials used support the desire to convey unprecedented suggestions: ceramics, recycled glass, silica powders, and oxides give rise to tesserae that differ from one another and in exclusive colours. The end result is a series of modules for flooring, side tables, and large table tops that have become part of the collection.

Nerikomi, a Japanese ceramic production technique, inspired the most recent experiments. Simona Sporchia creates coloured ceramic tesserae in her Monza workshop, which she then cuts, fires, and inserts on backgrounds made of concrete agglomerates and natural materials such as marble and recycled shards. The Venetian floor served as inspiration, with its chromatic bases in various shades punctuated by coloured grits.

Face to face with
Simona Sporchia, Monza

Interview by Anna Vullo
Director Maurizio Natta
Cinematographer Fabrizio Polla Mattiot @ateliermistral
Filmed by Maurizio Natta, Fabrizio Polla Mattiot @ateliermistral, Gianlorenzo Bernabò di Negro
Audio post production Top Digital
Soundtrack Universal Music Publishing Ricordi Srl

Alessandra Malfatti fell in love with “grand feu enamelling” during an exposition of Paolo De Poli, a renowned Paduan enameller who worked with Gio Ponti. She was seduced by its dazzling colours, the reflections, and the shimmering luminosity of the enamelled surfaces.

Since then, she has nurtured the dream to learn to work with fire to reproduce that magic. For the mystery of enamel is generated by the fire: letting melt powder of coloured glass on metal surfaces in kilns at extremely high temperatures.

Graphic designer, already used to designing little objects, Malfatti enrolled in an art school. There, she met two excellent masters, Graziano Visintin and Maria Rosa Franzin, and she specializes with Ennio Cestonaro, a polyhedric artist and an expert in enamel.

The path is marked. Driven by the desire to develop her expressive style, she establishes a laboratory on the outskirts of Padua, purchases the first kilns, and begins chromatic research to select the best glazes.

«The absolute seduction of enamel lies precisely in the colour» Malfatti explains. «In the nuances, shades, and combinations that can be achieved».

This is what binds her to Paola Lenti. They started by imagining surfaces that can be combined with the company’s collections: movable backdrops, bookshelves, and table tops.

A complex technique that originated in the Mediterranean between the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC. and is now used by very few artists worldwide.

Alessandra Malfatti chose copper as a support material; her inspiration comes from nature in all of its changing forms and innumerable shades. Another common ground: the family lexicon shared with Paola Lenti.

From the observation of the luxuriant vegetation of the Padua Botanical Garden – Alessandra Malfatti’s place of the heart – an installation of philodendron leaves in enamelled copper arises which, suspended from the ceiling, restores the atmosphere of a tropical forest.

Colours and veins derive from a skilful stratification of the enamels, while the movement of the leaves is forged manually when the copper comes out of the kiln and when the material is still ductile. Finally, fire puts its indelible mark on it, since different temperatures and firing times can produce signs, chiaroscuro and transparencies that are different each time. This is the mystery that Malfatti had sensed in De Poli’s works.

Experimentation goes on. “I am conducting several experiments with the idea of creating a sort of fantastic herbarium in various shades, from green to earth,” the Paduan artist declares. “Currently, these are tiny plates that are always made of enamelled copper and have simple symbols that may represent a leaf or a cactus. They might evolve into furniture, items, or something else in the future”.

To give depth to the images, Malfatti uses both transparent and opaque enamels. «It is precisely this feeling of depth, which is produced through the colour and which varies according to the light, that makes each piece precious».

Face to face
with Alessandra Malfatti, Padova

Interview by Anna Vullo
Director Maurizio Natta
Cinematographer Fabrizio Polla Mattiot @ateliermistral
Filmed by Maurizio Natta, Fabrizio Polla Mattiot @ateliermistral, Gianlorenzo Bernabò di Negro
Audio post production Top Digital
Soundtrack Universal Music Publishing Ricordi Srl

To meet Nicolò Morales we went to Caltagirone, in the heart of south-eastern Sicily, where the landscape unfolds in an ups and downs of hills and mountains.

A harsh land of contrasts and chiaroscuro. This is where Morales lives and works, the protagonist of the second episode of Face to face, a series of video interviews conceived to unveil how the unique pieces of the Paola Lenti collections are brought to life.

Morales is a master ceramist, the rebellious son of a tradition that every year attracts thousands of tourists to the city. His creations inevitably draw inspiration from classical canons, but from a very young age, with his first experiences in the workshop, he felt the urgency to find his own path: in a stubborn and opposite direction.

Intolerant of standard productions and colours, he travels the countryside and collects soils and minerals. Manganese, copper, cobalt oxide: the basis of the shades offered by the territory that he then grounds and fires, like an alchemist.

For Paola Lenti, the master ceramist from Caltagirone produces tables, side tables and movable backdrops in hand-painted ceramic, with a technique that leaves colours deliberately fluid, creating this way shades that change depending on the light. Unique pieces whose value lies in the extra-ordinary beauty, as well as in the unmistakable craftsmanship.

«Paola Lenti was looking for unusual finishes» explains Morales while kneading clay in his workshop. « I showed her what I was experimenting with and it immediately created a connection, a symbiosis of ideas. Obviously, we look in the same direction».

«For those who, like me, grew up immersed in tradition it is not easy to innovate», he adds at the end of the interview. «Paradoxically, when you depart from it you are considered a subversive. And I am happily subversive».

Face to face
with Nicolò Morales, Caltagirone

Interview by Anna Vullo
Director Maurizio Natta
Cinematographer Fabrizio Polla Mattiot @ateliermistral
Filmed by Maurizio Natta, Fabrizio Polla Mattiot @ateliermistral, Gianlorenzo Bernabò di Negro
Audio post production Top Digital
Soundtrack Universal Music Publishing Ricordi Srl

What has always distinguished Paola Lenti is research. Not only in its specific realm – yarns, fabrics, colours – in which it has established itself as an avant-garde company, but also in the field of other materials, provided they have a story to tell. It is these stories that Paola Lenti seeks out, along with the skills, the passion, the beauty they bring with them and the manual dexterity handed down from one generation to the next. As it is in her DNA.

From these stories, exclusive collaborations with artists-artisans selected throughout the country arose, in line with a philosophy that has chosen to favor the excellence of Made in Italy. Over the years, the collections have been enhanced with new families of products designed to dialogue with the company’s furnishings and colours, in tune with a harmonious and yet heterogeneous living concept. Different materials – ceramics, lava, metal and glass – have brought to life products, which are exclusive because they are made with ancient techniques and crafted, painted and finished by hand. Unique pieces that have contributed to making Paola Lenti brand unmistakable all over the world.

Marella Ferrera is the protagonist of the first episode. She is Sicilian and heir to a tailor’s shop that has been a point of reference for Catania high society since the 1960s: grand evening gowns, elaborately embroidered wedding dresses; suggestions that recall the atmospheres of the well-known Italian novel Il Gattopardo together with nonconformist proposals, such as the synthetic fur collars that anticipate the 1968 eagerness to sweep away bourgeois conventions.

Marella was in search of her own personal path. In the nineties she makes her debut in Rome in the haute couture with the idea of narrating Sicily through traditional materials such as lava stone and ceramics. She reinterprets, experiments, deconstructs: a stylistic approach that will later allow her to tune in with the vision of Paola Lenti.

The meeting takes place in Sicily, where Marella Ferrera has returned to continue the narration of her origins by observing them up close. Paola Lenti asks her to use lava to dress living spaces. Together, they try to melt fragments of glass directly on the stone, with effects that evoke the colours of the sea, the shades of green of the gardens, the lava flows of Etna. Sciara is brought to life, a luminous and very resistant material that today covers the surfaces of tables, side tables and partition walls in the company’s collections. The study of local ceramic floorings has instead given rise to a collection of embroidered rugs that reveal the signs of the dominations of the island. The yarns are Paola Lenti’s technical ones, the workforce is a family heritage. They are Marella’s aunts, the same ones who once embroidered trousseaus and corsets in her mother’s tailor shop.

Face to face
with Marella Ferrera, Catania

Interview by Anna Vullo
Direction by Maurizio Natta
Filming by Gianlorenzo Bernabò di Negro, Maurizio Natta, Fabrizio Polla Mattiot
Editing by Fabrizio Polla Mattiot
Soundtrack Universal Music Publishing Ricordi Srl

The postcard image of Miami framed by palm trees and beaches is a thing of the past. Today the most famous city in Florida attracts visitors from all over the world for its rich cultural and artistic offer. It embodies a cultivated and cosmopolitan glamour and is home to one of the most awaited events of the year, Art Basel Miami, the US equivalent of the Basel fair, the prestigious rendezvous with the best of international contemporary art.

At the same time, the most Latin city in America has experienced a growing interest in design, promoting another event, Design Miami, which has become a fixed appointment for architects, planners and interior designers from all backgrounds.

The indoor space of over 650 square meters with large windows overlooking the street is surrounded by a lush garden of local plants. More than a store, the flagship is a concept house, divided into different environs, the sum of which aims to convey an overall vision and propose harmonious, balanced and bespoke living spaces, which have always been the cornerstone of the company philosophy.

Paola Lenti has decided to open the store on the occasion of the 2022 editions of Art Basel and Design Miami that this year took place almost at the same time, between November 30 and December 4, to present to the American public the new Metamorfosi collection, penned by Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana and entirely made of Paola Lenti production leftovers.

Six unique pieces living at the intersection of art and design that seduced visitors thanks to their inedited forms and the bright colour palette, unmistakable hallmark of the company. It is a sustainable and responsible collection, born from the desire to reduce waste, that involves migrant women at risk of social exclusion in the production process.

The wide space of the store, opened in partnership with Casual Furniture Group, showcases all of the most representative products of Paola Lenti, from those that made the history of the brand to the most recent ones, such as the Eres furnishings, the first collection entirely made of natural materials, or the outdoor chaise lounges Jardín, a tribute to Cuban born designer Clara Porset. The garden offers comprehensive outdoor solutions, created with modular structures designed to protect from the sun, like Resort, and seating furniture with exclusive technical upholstery covers, which are resistant to humidity, rain and ultraviolet rays, hence ideal for Miami climate.

Furthermore, it boasts a consolidated tradition in the boating industry, a sector where Paola Lenti has gained a considerable market share thanks to the high performing technical materials used for its products, capable of withstanding particularly severe climate conditions.

Metamorfosi, this is the name of the new collection designed by Campana, draws inspiration from the natural world and its mutations. Morpho, Centopeia, Alicia, are organisms inhabiting our earth and our seas. The observer, though, is free to interpret appearance and shapes. The border with a work of art is very thin: they are unique pieces that arouse wonder.

Victoria and Saly Samba have been involved in the production of the prototypes from the social tailor’s shop CouLture Migrante in Como that uses itself discontinued fabrics for its products and offers job opportunities to migrant men and women at risk of social exclusion. This is the sign that includes: the people, Paola Lenti and Campana ideas. And all comes full circle.

Guerrilla gardeners plant flowers “clandestinely” in degraded places.
Mona Caron, somehow, does the same with her brush. The aim is the same as well: make the beauty flourish where there is none. Rundown districts, proletarian suburbs, anonymous skyscrapers.
However, Mona Caron, contrary to the guerrilla gardeners, sows her seeds of beauty rising from the ground and pointing straight towards the sky, because the peculiarity of his monumental works is to literally climb on the facades of the buildings, “blossoming” where the view begins to get lost against the horizon. With a magnificent visual impact.

Growing up in the woods of Switzerland, American by adoption, Mona Caron is the antithesis of the mannered artist. Her “uniform” is limited to sneakers and wide trousers, her hair tucked underneath the helmet, essential to safely create the gigantic murals that made her famous internationally.
The subject is symbolic: ordinary flowers and weeds growing spontaneously in the cities, breaking through the cracks in concrete walls. A tribute to resistance, or resilience, to use a rather misused but very current term, of those that “have no place in this world – the artist explains -, that are not part of plans, and nonetheless go on fighting and pushing to emerge”.

The series of the hurban weeds, as Mona Caron calls them, started on the walls of San Francisco, where the artist lives, and then crossed the borders of the United States and “invaded” the skyscrapers of San Paolo or gray suburban apartment blocks in Portugal and Sweden.

“I look for clandestine plant life in the city streets. When I find a particularly heroic specimen growing through a fissure, I paint it big, at a scale inversely proportional to the attention and regard it gets. Against the hardest cement, against all odds, we too can find our fissure, and keep pushing. That’s the way change happens”.

To create her murals, Mona Caron often collaborates with Brazilian Mauro Neri, her life partner, and many other artists-activists. Where she makes flowers bloom, they restore body and dignity to the invisible – homeless, indigenous, seasonal workers – portraying them in the little big daily battles. Making them feel represented.