ORIGINATORS BY MATTE PRESENTS VALENTINA CAMERANESI
Born in Rome, Valentina Cameranesi currently lives in Milan where she works as art director and set designer.
Having studied Industrial Design in Milan, Cameranesi found herself mostly interested in research and imagery and it wasn’t until 2017 that her journey into glass truly began, having created a display of vessels that led to a sizable commission of champagne and wine glasses of her own designs.
Valentina work reveals many sources of inspiration, from ancient Rome, to the Wiener Werkstatte, to props used in fantasy and horror films of the 1980s.
Glass is not the only medium through which Valentina has expressed her artistic capabilities, having designed and produced digital printed silk, jacquard textiles, laminated tables, and ceramic vessels.
MATTE: Your pieces for your recent New York exhibit at the Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery and others before have been realized in “borosilicate” glass, which appears very delicate and thin to the eyes, but it is actually used in chemistry labs for its acute capacity to resist chemical change and withstand thermal shocks.
Did you pick this material for this duality between appearance and capacity?
VC: The first time I worked with borosilicate it was almost by chance.
The curator of the 2018 “Panorama” exhibition - Annalisa Rosso - helped me find a laboratory open to collaborate and that was able to work the glass.
At that time I was not familiar with borosilicate, but I immediately saw the expressive potential of the material and I decided to explore it with the help of the master craftsmen.
MATTE: You’ve been working with glass, ceramic, textiles, etc. How do you pick your materials and are there any others that you are willing to use in the future?
VC: I would love to work with wood and metal
I usually work with one material at a time. While working on one project, I rarely combine different ones, unless it is fundamental for the project itself.
The properties of the fabric are yet to be explored for me.
I don't have a specific way to choose a material, it's more an intuition or an idea born from a possibility.
MATTE: We know that your inspiration behind your pieces comes from diverse media, from fashion, movies, history. Can you please share the inspiration behind a few of your sculptured objects realized until today?
VC: I get inspired by the shapes of the Wiener Werkstätte (Engl.: Vienna Workshop), the artist Barbara Hepworth and Gino De Dominicis drawings.
MATTE: Is there any commercial collaboration between companies and artists that lately caught your attention? Can you please let us know why?
VC: Lalique and James Turrell - simply stunning!
Sketches by Valentina Cameranesi
MATTE: Are there any brands, companies that you would love to collaborate with? Are there any particular reasons behind your picks?
VC: I would love to work with beauty brands and create packagings and special small displays
Everything related to the use of color is fascinating to me from makeup to paints.
A dream is to draw a palette of paints both as an object and as a choice of colors.
MATTE: The history of making in interior design is aligned with traditional crafts - that is intrinsic to your work - but a parallel discourse with digital fabrication has yet to be made evident. Do you think the role of Hand will be anyway essential in an era where Digital Design is becoming bigger and bigger?
VC: I think so, maybe they
perhaps they will amalgamate more and more but in my opinion the tactility and the pleasure of using the hands are still necessary and are part of a memory and a language that is transversal
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Interview by Francesca Valente
Head of Talents
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