De Lorenzo / Mazzotta
Location CENTRO (San Ceccardo)
Sculpture
Simona and Francesco are a couple since the time of the Academy, who have shared everything, their life, their passion for sculpture, along a similar and parallel professional path, participating many times together in the same events and symposia of sculpture, creating numerous monumental sculptures around the world. In 2020 they opened their own atelier where they could create their own marble sculptures and other materials.
Born in Naples, Simona De Lorenzo studied at the Artistic High School of Naples and in 1999 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara. During his studies he began to work in the artistic workshops of Carrara, such as the AMA studio, where he learned the techniques of working with marble, a material he would choose in a prevalent way for his own expression and artistic production. He was immediately interested in public stone sculpture. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and international symposia of sculpture creating several public sculptures around the world.
Since the beginning of my work I have been more and more interested in public sculptures, because the large dimensions allow the sculpture to dialogue with the surrounding space, with the urban or natural environment, with light and soil, and why , being a public work outdoors, is a free dialogue between sculpture and people. This is a unique privilege of sculpture, become part of the environment, belong to the space in which it is placed. That’s why I love this artistic language. And stone always remains one of the most suitable materials for public works. Dualism is the common thread that runs through my work, from the choice of material to forms, to themes, nothing can exist without its opposite, such as day and night, joy and pain, love and hatred. Probably the fact of having grown up in a city of extreme contradictions is reflected in my search for opposing and complementary elements that form the fullness of things, the dualism that regulates the balance of life. Of the material I am interested in the different characteristics, even opposed to each other, intrinsic of the stone: strength and delicacy, durability and fragility.
Born in Copertino (Le) Francesco Mazzotta studied at the art institute of Lecce and graduated in 1999 at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara. He has worked in many sculpture workshops in Carrara and since 2019 teaches Techniques of marble at the Academy of BB AA of Reggio Calabria. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and international symposia of sculpture creating several public sculptures around the world. His artistic output mainly concerns monumental public sculpture.
The constant search for forms that elegantly bind with the surrounding space has led me to experiment with marble, plasticity and elegance both in geometric sculpture and in abstract sculpture and what follows is pure formal essentiality. And it is precisely the essence that is the focus of my research. Stone is a guardian of past life, it is able to reveal secrets and poems. I, "digging", go to pull out his breath, his breath, his voice and his stories and we, with our senses we can and we must perceive them. I work a lot on the design and on the sketches, small tests that are fundamental to understand if it has the characteristics to be able to become a sculpture to realize in great dimensions, if it is more suitable for a place than another, if to choose a marble or another. The maximum expression for my sculpture is to realize it in great measures, therefore the study, the search, the tests are integral part of the sculpture same.
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