Francesca Mazzotta describes herself as a dreamer, with the soul of an artist. This is reflected in the expressive jewelry and contemporary objects that she makes in her studio in Salento. An Apulian at heart, Francesca combines old and new materials and techniques to create Jewelry Mâché.
The creativity and willingness to express herself through the creation of objects is something that has formed Francesca throughout her entire life and came to her at a very young age.
“My background was formed when I was a child, I loved drawing, painting, but above all shaping objects. Curiosity and emotions were my engines for creativity and I am still grateful today for the great sensitivity and passion of a teacher in elementary school in transmitting all her knowledge to me. I still remember the frenzy of attending the afternoon art courses where I experimented with different techniques. This experience was crucial for my future, so much that I continued in this direction, first graduating in Applied Arts and then obtaining a degree in Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce.”
“Puglia represents my center of gravity, it is a mysterious, sensual land with great opportunities.”
Having been raised, trained, and now professionally based in Apulia, the region is of course of high importance to Francesca and is a strong source of inspiration. “Puglia represents my center of gravity, it is a mysterious, sensual land with great opportunities. I chose to work in Salento because I feel I belong to this place and I believe it is an inexhaustible source of stimuli,” she explains.
Her hunger to grow has driven her to explore hands-on different environments, including training courses and various collaborations with architectural firms, graphic laboratories, ceramics studios, and goldsmiths, as well as various materials including Lecce’s signature art, paper mâché, linked to the city’s Baroque architecture. In fact, this is the starting point of Francesca’s art.
“I started by enhancing the ancient technique of the local culture, paper-mâché from Lecce, by reinterpreting it…to develop traditional and current techniques such as the use of 3D printing, giving contemporaneity to the pieces. I prefer to work with paper, cellulose fibre, and different metals. I am very attracted to the process of manipulation and evolution of the raw material to become a shape and the dialogue that is created between these different materials: malleable, with relative fragility and compact, with a high hardness.”
In what do you find inspiration?
“My inspiration comes from a geographical, cultural, and human identity. I tell through symbols, the introspective world of women, the poetic nature of places and times past or, as in the latest “Natus” collection, the society where the modern man is immersed.”
What new collections are you currently working on?
“Currently I am working on a project that has a very current theme, that of consumerism. But as always my territory is a source of inspiration as in all projects.”
Francesca Mazzotta’s jewelry is available online, at Galleria Rossini in Milan, Mydaybyday Gallery in Rome, Nugae Galleria in Gallipoli and in her own, soon to be opened, gallery in Cutrofiano.
Discover more:
instagram.com/francescamazzottajewels/
Oliver Dahle is a Swedish writer who is based in Florence and earlier also lived in Rome. He has earlier written about lifestyle covering Scandinavia. With a Masters degree in Fashion Marketing he has a deep interest in fashion in general, but Italian fashion in particular. Besides fashion, other interests are football, photography, design and architecture, travelling and, of course, food.
