The works of Lara De Sio are shadows, organic silhouettes with vibrant contours, chthonic clouds that appear among mortals and carry the trace of what is no longer present: the time of labor and gestures that gave them form.

Each piece is handcrafted using white semi-refractory clay and the coiling technique, a slow and meditative process in which thin strings of clay are first overlapped and then welded together until the final figure emerges. After the bisque firing, the pieces are prepared for the raku process, covered with various kinds of masking – fabrics, paper, or engobes of differing thicknesses – and, in some cases, polished with diamond sponges.

The smoke released during reduction shapes the decisive appearance of the works. Settling on the unmasked areas, it conjures chromatic nuances ranging from deep black to luminous white, unfolding through endless gradations of gray. This is the naked raku technique, in which the removal of the maskings reveals the ultimate face of a geometric abstraction, both formal and epidermal, at once alien and familiar, that evokes archetypal memories of ancient and distant cultures.

UMBRÆ once again places Venice and Rome in a cultural dialogue. The former, a city of stones smoothed by water and corroded by time, serves as a daily source of inspiration for the artist. The latter, aeterna urbs hospitalis, welcomes her works, which here find their natural resonance.

*

Lara De Sio (Bolzano, 1968) lives and works in Venice, Italy. After graduating in Architecture at IUAV in Venice, she first practised as an architect in Italy and the Netherlands, and later as a glass designer in Murano, collaborating with Venini and Barovier&Toso. She began experimenting with ceramics in the 1980s, attending several masterclasses in Tuscany and Umbria, and specialising in the smoke firing technique with the British ceramicist David Roberts.

In 2013 she held her first solo exhibition, Naked Raku, at the Kleine Galerie Stadt Bozen (IT), and took part in the international fair Goudse Keramiekdagen in Gouda (NL). In 2017 she was a finalist at the 13th Bienal Internacional de Cerâmica Artística in Aveiro (PT), and in 2019 she won first prize in the CoffeeBreak.Museum competition at Museo delle Ceramiche Gianetti (IT), with a Special Mention from MiDeC – International Museum of Ceramic Design – and the Carlo Zauli Museum Prize. In 2021 she was again a finalist at the 10th Bienal de Cerámica in Talavera de la Reina (ES), and received an Honourable Mention at the 15th Bienal Internacional de Cerâmica Artística in Aveiro (PT). Her works are part of permanent collections in museums in Europe and China.

Her pieces are included in the collections of: Museo della Ceramica Giuseppe Gianetti, Saronno, Italy; Museo Ruiz de Luna, Talavera de la Reina, España; Museu de Sancta Joana, Aveiro, Portugal; Ceramic Art Avenue Taoxichuan, Jingdezhen City, China