Malachite

We are Giulia Palamin and Nicola Chiavotti, members of the collective “Malachite”.

We both graduated at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli where we learned the historical mosaic making techniques.

The passion for traveling drove us to individually embark on different adventures: participation in exhibitions (Icons of Art - Galleria Bertoia, Pordenone 2019; Riflessi - Galleria ai Molini, Portogruaro 2018; Couleur, Lumierère, Mouvement - Maison de la Mosaique Contemporaine, Paray le Monial 2017), teaching mosaic art at the Chicago Mosaic School and at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, a non-profit foundation in India for the art spread (mosaic included), large scale mosaic laying in Europe, USA and Canada.

We then met again in Spilimbergo and started cooperating for personal projects. In May 2021 the collective “Malachite” was born.

We have always been fascinated and inspired by the alterations of the physical textures of the materials used by Burri and by Pierre Soulage’s artworks: matter and light that live together and acquire the same importance; one colour, the “autrenoir”, that detaches itself from monochrome thanks to the light effects on the matter, a certain stylistic rigor that may resemble his works to Agnes Martin pieces. We have always admired her vision about concentration and focus practiced in her works and the apparent rigidity of her patterns continuously repeated but made alive by small variations in the features that compose them.

Mosaic is one of the slowest arts but we strongly believe this slowness represents one of its greatest values; we use natural materials (marbles, pebbles,..) and we try to listen to them to understand their history, to touch them to feel the intrinsic vibrations and to observe them to notice the wonderful details that nature gives us.

Each single tile originates from millennia of geologic layering and is hand cut: that’s why it’s unique and unrepeatable.