Eros is life itself...
My symbolical Venus Is a powerful symbol of the consciousness rising from the unconscious mind: as femininity charged of creative possibility, it rises from the sea as Love. Here now she stands with her attributes in symbols and objects, as manifestations of biodiversity of life. Creativity, eros, life, immanence... I have always pursued an ideal of natural, spontaneous, unsophisticated sensuality and eroticism. The beauty of simplicity, freedom and self-mastery. Nudity as an original condition, simply veiled by an unpretentious garment, but always underlying and present. In this way I imagine my pieces ideally represented: as symbols of emancipation rather than self-affirmation or status manifestations. Symbolic objects, rituals, celebrating a complete vision of the world. In my work I pursue a ceremonial jewelry for a new religiosity of the Goddess.
The concept of simulating time passing over matter is really important for me. One of the reasons made me work with the foam for shaping pieces. Jewellery in time, not out of it.
Holy shape... As sacred as an egg opened by a new life, as a bowl full of water or milk, as the waistline of woman’s hips.
Understanding the formal language of natural forms opens the door to infinite variations on simple themes which manifest themselves in unsuspected and obvious results at the same time: a sea urchin, a pine cone, a fig...
Venus rising from the sea, dressed with shells and the power of life generation. Is a powerful symbol of the conscience rising from the unconscious mind, as Love.
Explore a language, push the shapes to the limit, do the strangest pieces you can...
...then forget everything and come back to something easy and simple with the things you learned.
A pendant worthy of a Mayan princess if it were in pure gold. A ceremonial amulet celebrating the Sun and the Deep at the same time. As alchemists usually say: “what is above is what is below”...Immanence!
Polyurethane casted in gold is magic. Is humble, without a surface to shine...as a secret treasure. Something sacred and hidden and fragile... As a picture of a pollen grain taken with the electronic microscope.
Eros is life itself! Simple shapes evoking life and simplicity and a certain kind of purity. The purity of life itself, that self celebrates in its own existence. No intention, no purpose, no sin.
Venus lies on the shoreline, as a mermaid resting. We often can find on the beach many signs and symbols thrown above from deepness, tiny elements of a huge richness lying in the sea... Of the world or of ourselves. We walk, observe, collect, and offer to others... The duty of Art making.
Always simplicity helps to communicate, to explain a concept. But simplicity is not a starting point, not for me. Is an achievement by struggles, try and error and error and error...
Sometimes, perhaps, by chance... I found something.
Cages, structures of Voronoi, grids, structures from the darkness of the sea as symbols of ideas, feelings, thoughts, emotions, identities.
Perfection has never been my goal. In my work as in my life...rather I prefer to pursue completeness. So is a movement in spiral, not in a straight line: going back often over my steps with a new sight. This is as the experiment with wool inside jewels began, with an old design that I love for his equilibrium between simplicity, complexity, fullness and emptiness
Look at the world with the sight of the goddess, look at the world as in every single part is the Goddess.
Here again the metaphysical eros in my work. Sexual geometry, vulva as abstraction, openess in a sphere. Soft, warm, bright inside a hard dark shell.
The flower became fruit and the fruit rotted to release the seed.
I am increasingly fascinated by geometric patterns represented without any precision or rigor. Simply how the free hand manages to express them. An interesting balance between the mind-loving order and the spirit-loving complexity.
When geometry fades into a spontaneous natural look. The result is something that seems without authorship, without intention. It is something that the Taoist part of my soul loves deeply and the rational part relentlessly pursues.
When complexity arises from small intuitions, from a few repeated formal rules ... the
result has unity, clarity and strength.
Born in Milan, Italy, in 1969, I have resided in Formentera, Spain, since 1997. For many years I have been developing a formal research on the design of living beings applying it to jewelry and plastic arts. My work is strongly influenced by marine life and the Mediterranean environment. I am fascinated by an aesthetic based on the presence of time in the appearance of the jewel. From the natural forms of living beings I try to isolate and propose in my work the elements that mainly interpret feelings of strength and balance. I try to express a certain “presence” or “sacredness” of life in all its manifestations, particularly evident in the simplest forms: mosses, lichens, sponges, diatoms, radiolarians ... Parallel to my jeweler work, I’ve deepened in the analysis of nature, with explorations in the world of photography, ceramics and sculpture.
May 2022
Lorenzo Pepe
Jeweller and contemporary artist 0034 610 94 29 72 drophius@gmail.com www.lorenzopepe.com Formentera - Spain
