” VENICE ART AND CRAFTS “
And right between Campo S.Margherita, one of the liveliest places of the city (especially in summer, thanks to high concentration of cafés and restaurants with outdoor tables) and the nearby Campo S.Barnaba, there is a shop-atelier of Gualti, whose real name is Gualtiero Salbego, “experimenter of matter”, as he defines himself.
After training as a ceramist, during which he had never stopped creating various objects using also wood and metals, in 1990 he discovered a material usually used for industrial purposes: it’s to do with synthetic resin, supple and therefore mouldable, that has the transparency and lightness of glass but not its fragility.
Thanks to this material, originally poor but becoming precious with manufacture and combination with glass and crystal details, then hand painted, Gualti starts to create these necklaces, almost small sculptures but which seem endowed with life (in fact, he calls them “creatures”): brooches as leaves or flowers with long threads, necklace as a waterfall of filaments or roots, earrings as anemone vibratiles, which at close look reveal a microcosm rich in details: the “heart” of the jewel is almost always in glass or crystal, that a below layer of silver makes luminous and iridescent like an eye.
All in this innocent and welcoming space seems to be in continuous becoming: even the brick walls within sight, slowly crumbled by time, or the wooden beams on the ceiling, all speak about ceaseless change of natural world.
In addition to necklaces, Gualti has recently started to produce also some accessories, always characterised by his unmistakable style: silk scarves where the fabric remains almost imprisoned by filaments of resin and evening shoes in crepe or satin silk handcrafted following his drawing, often adorned with a small jewel.
Here the digital edition
