Cultivating intuitive visual harmonies

How can you describe your creative process? And how do you nurture your creativity?

Creativity is a very instinctive and natural process to me. It feeds my personal life and professional identity. For me, that's a permanent balancing act. I seek that sweet spot between maximum exposure to the global creative world and the total peace of being isolated in nature. Indeed, I chose to be based in an old and restored farmhouse in the countryside of Tuscany, physically away from the world chaos. On the one hand, the web, social platforms like Instagram, readings, travels, and networking are a daily adventure and offer endless stimulation. On the other hand, my state of disconnection allows my thoughts to settle in to feel my inner voice. My creativity arises at the meeting point of these extremes, when I can be at the top of a hill, far away from everything else, yet simultaneously interconnected with the rest of the world.

What is curating for you? What is important for you as a curator?

Instinct is the key to my curatorial practice. This approach springs from the union of everything I absorb, namely the aesthetic, physical, and intellectual stimulations around me. When I select artists and artworks to exhibit, I search for feelings of depth and sophistication, strength and subtlety united. To create dialogues, I merge multiple visions, art objects, and architectural elements in pursuit of intelligent and intuitive harmony. My goal is to bring art, yet respecting all its sacredness, into the daily environment, and create a unique experience of living with beauty and honest creativity.

To what extent does multidisciplinarity have a key role in your work?

I am a very curious person, eager to go beyond traditional categories and embrace multidisciplinary approaches. I am fascinated by the intrinsic connections that can be uncovered between art, design, interior design, and fashion. I am a painter, and I process visually. My father is an academic and a painter himself, and I grew up in his studio, among his paintings and spatulas, breathing pigments and oil, and above all, learning how enriching the presence of art in a person’s life is. I moved to Italy in my twenties to study fashion design at the Polimoda in Florence, and since then, I have been working in this field for two decades as a teacher and designer, before founding KALPA. My artistic vision is the result of the fluid passage from an intense experience in art and aesthetic trends toward the creation of an ideal space of art living, a place where the architecture, the art, and the human come together in harmony.

Among our represented artists, we narrowed down our selection to Guillem Nadal and Federico Gori, Sabine Pagliarulo and Konrad Koppold. We spent a lot of time digging into these artists' work, understanding their vision, and carefully imagining which pieces would best converse with the Molteni&C design. Ultimately, we chose them because they align with our main vision of an organic, balanced corpus of art within the space. You may find timeless, minimal forms in wood and stoneware, emotional landscapes, and botanical visions, all conveying a profound mastery of technique.

Finally, the sculptures. Sabine Pagliarulo’s pieces, in essential forms of stoneware and porcelain, evoke feelings of life, nourishment, and protection. Her work acts as a primordial womb or warm, continuous shells, endless embraces, and you can sense that uninterrupted flow in every detail. There is also a clear sense of deep, private focus in her creative process. To this artist, clay represents a way to reclaim a space for feminine creation. Finally, Konrad Koppold is all about asymmetry, opposites, balancing form, colour and texture. For this artist, the inception of a shape transcends the limits of the technique, leading him to express his spiritual and professional awareness in the containing form. Indeed, his vessels in oakwood are intended as metaphysical devices that carry the human soul.