From handcrafts with a primordial essence to unique wall decorations. A wallpaper collection that recovers ancient beauty by transforming it into a timeless material.
The ART-AI wallpaper collection is inspired by a project conceived by the designer Giuliano Ravazzini and his countless trips to the African continent. The wallpapers reproduce the works created by Giuliano, true unique pieces with a high handicraft component linked to the manual processing of an apparently very simple material: paper.
ART-AI is a constantly evolving project, with the aim of creating a bridge and an unbreakable bond between Italy and Africa.
A bond made up of artistic inspiration and culture, diversity and aesthetics, intuition and beauty research.
The name ART-AI already expresses the desire to find a point of union between two continents, with the aim of recovering ancient decorative techniques handed down over time according to the rules of the tribe. The basic idea on which all the artistic research behind the project is based is giving a new life and a contemporary look to these decorations by blending them with the modern taste of European interior design.
This encounter between profoundly different cultures gives birth to artistic productions, which mostly take pictorial form. Each of these is like an enigma that incites the imagination to discover the story hidden behind the shapes and signs.
The works of ART-AI propose an executive technique shared by an entire village community, which transforms waste material, paper, plants and colours into harmonious decorative compositions, as well as in everyday objects.
The outcome sees cultural and operational diversities converge in highly suggestive images, that satisfy the aesthetic demands of the contemporary world.
The artistic research of the ART-AI project blends ancient techniques, colours and forms together. The common thread is a mix of cultures which, despite their diversity, maintain a uniform aesthetics. These works are distinguished by a high level of craftsmanship due to the manual processing of an apparently simple material. The production takes place without the tools that an artist usually uses, and instead discarded and thrown-away materials are sought for reuse and renewal.
“As I create my papers trying to reproduce what I saw in Africa, I realise that the most beautiful ones are the ones where I repair or fix the tears. If I let myself go into a more mental, more conceptual construction, this freshness gets lost. It is a very subtle balance, but it was precisely this sparkle that gave rise to the project” - Giuliano Ravazzini
We were fascinated by the simplicity of these creations, a feeling of handcrafted simplicity with an African tribal flavour. An African echo takes your mind towards far-away countries, surrounded by these colours and these shapes.
The use of technologies that allow us to reproduce in print the appearance of the papers created by Giuliano and the ART-AI collective, that is, this surface appearance of roughness, these colours produced by natural oxides, allows us to convey to the people who will be surrounded by the wallpapers the same ancestral emotional state.
Choosing these wallpapers will be like visiting Africa. Just a few hints to make your mind wander.
