‘With Ornamentum, De Castelli goes back to the roots of decoration and does so by focusing on the slowness of the manual gesture: by aligning notions of chemistry, mechanics and the history of art, the company restores an authorial interpretation of the technique of erosion.
By bringing together industrial process and high craftsmanship, De Castelli once again interweaves strategic vision and creativity: the result is a collection of copper and brass paintings that come alive with the power of design and tell of the versatility of this technique.
The research starts from afar, from the indirect etching technique of etching and the work of 16th century Swiss goldsmiths, and is applied through dialogue with the company's specific and advanced know-how. The material is not engraved mechanically, but through metal clamping: erosion thus transforms the metal, just one millimetre thick, into a work of art that reveals its poetry.
31 designers are involved to realise a personal interpretation that restores to the flatness of the plate the emotion of a tactile and perceptive experience: lettering, optical graphics and organic storytelling become a constellation of eclectic and multiform signs, made up of 31 different works that come to life on copper and brass.
For the past eight years De Castelli has been investigating the expressive potential of eroded metals, experimenting with chemical ablution processes with unexpected results: oxidising baths uncover all the magic of the material, bringing out three-dimensional effects that convey the fascination of uniqueness.’
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