Aria Art Gallery is pleased to present the solo exhibition of Lorenzo Malfatti, “L’Armonia degli Opposti (The Harmony of Opposites),” from September 21st to December 2nd at the Florence location in Borgo SS. Apostoli 40/r at 6:00 PM, with the patronage of the Municipality of Florence. This exhibition is characterized by the inclusion of a series of unpublished works, created through the application of the glass fusion technique, which constitutes the artist’s distinctive hallmark. Essay by Nataša Radojević.
In the world of contrasts, where the nuances of human expression come to life, a subtle play between eternal apparent antagonisms manifests itself. Comparable to the fusion of water and fire in a perpetual rhythm, the artist embraces a profound vision: opposites are not separate entities but deeply intertwined, reflecting the multiple facets of a single reality. “The distinctive feature of the new humanism is the awareness of the illusory nature of opposites,” a proposition that finds resonance in Lorenzo Malfatti’s creations. Art assumes the role of a bridge, connecting the fire of passions and the calm of water, breaking down illusory barriers that divide good and evil, or true and false, beautiful and ugly. Like the extremes of the same pole, the opposing elements within his works merge into a symphonic embrace. The artist delves into the depths of the human psyche, revealing the disguise of appearances. What appears as a sharp and insurmountable contrast instead reveals its belonging to a higher order, a puzzle of meanings that come together to outline a broader picture.
Through Malfatti’s work, we perceive an uninterrupted harmonizing force. This force is not simply the fusion of opposing poles, but rather a celebration of unity within diversity. Water and fire, seemingly irreconcilable, converge in his works as metaphors for the human condition, revealing the beauty and complexity of existence in a state of perpetual metamorphosis. Glass, as well as color, plays a fundamental role in a pictorial process aimed at portraying two adversaries in search of identity, in the eternal quest for harmonization. In a world often prone to divisions and oppositions, the artist emerges as a shining example of how opposites are not insurmountable barriers but rather connecting threads. Malfatti’s works encourage us to look beyond the surfaces, to dance on the thin line of separation between duality and unity. The exhibition is curated by Antonio Budetta, with the contribution of Samuele Malfatti, a video artist and director, and composer Antonio Agostini, with whom the artist has collaborated in creating some multimedia works.
Essay by WHY NAT
During the 1980s, Lorenzo Malfatti founded MALò Studio, where, alongside the production of traditional stained glass, he began an intensive investigation into glass fusion. Developing a highly personal technique, he incorporated coloured pigments, mineral oxides, and metallic fragments within layered sheets of glass, creating unique fused blocks capable of capturing, transforming, and refracting light and colour.
This innovative approach to glass fusion marked the beginning of a contemporary artistic practice that moved beyond the decorative tradition of stained glass. Instead, Malfatti explored new subjects and informal visual languages, producing substantial fused-glass bas-reliefs distinguished by their sculptural depth and material complexity.
By the mid-1990s, his experimentation had expanded to include painted wooden supports incorporating fused-glass elements, as well as mixed-media sculptures integrating glass fusion. Painting, however, has remained an essential constant throughout his artistic practice, characterised by embedded glass fragments and richly textured surfaces created through layered mixtures of plaster, sand, bitumen, adhesives, charcoal, and mineral powders.
In recent years, Malfatti's research has embraced new creative possibilities through the integration of technology. This has resulted in works combining sculpted glass panels with LED illumination, giving rise to luminous totems that emit light transformed and refracted through glass. This marked the beginning of the TECNOTOTEM series, characterised by crystal monoliths, metal structures, and video projections.
Today, Malfatti's principal artistic investigation focuses on the refraction of light and the distortion of images through reworked industrial glass and video technology. This research is developed in collaboration with his son, Samuele Malfatti, an established video artist and filmmaker. Together they have created the video sculptures THALASSA and ELEMENTI I, in which original footage of water and fire is refracted and reinterpreted through fractured laminated glass, creating an immersive sensory and imaginative journey through these two primordial elements.
Malfatti describes his artistic practice as a lifelong journey dedicated to capturing, manipulating, and returning light. His work is grounded in the meticulous observation of every manifestation of light—its reflections, glimmers, shadows, and refractions—in order to infuse each creation with energy and movement. Glass has become the defining material of his oeuvre, as its transparency and reflective qualities generate an infinite chromatic palette, transforming the medium into a crystallised fluid vibrating with energy, endlessly absorbing and reflecting light.
His work does not seek to represent the visible world but rather to evoke the invisible—that hidden dimension residing within the deepest recesses of the human psyche. His works function as portals to an immaterial realm in which each viewer is invited to discover a personal key to interpreting their own perceptions and emotions. For Malfatti, this realm constitutes a sacred space: the point of departure for an inner journey unconstrained by time or place, an ancestral chromosome shared by humanity that transcends cultural boundaries and reconnects the individual with the deepest dimension of the soul. It is within this vision that he locates the true meaning of artistic creation.
The exhibition Harmony of Opposites brings together all the elements of this journey, one that is simultaneously personal, collective, and ancestral. The first two galleries are devoted respectively to the elemental forces of Water and Fire, each presented independently, allowing their distinctive identities, energies, and expressive power to emerge. The final gallery presents the installation Scars of the Earth, comprising three mixed-media canvases and a video sculpture. The latter continuously alternates visions of water and fire, filtered and transformed through a fractured block of laminated glass, whose fragmented surface introduces movement and unpredictability while emphasising the perpetual interaction between the two elements.
The installation offers a compelling meditation on these fundamental natural forces. Malfatti reflects upon their ceaseless dialogue, viewing water and fire as the engines of perpetual transformation. Their interaction leaves traces—scars—that may sometimes heal, yet at other times continue to bleed, revealing their destructive potential. Through this work, the artist suggests that humanity's disruption of natural balances has intensified these destructive forces, resulting in a condition in which "the scars have begun to bleed once again."
Within the canvases exhibited in this gallery, Malfatti incorporates charred wood alongside sheets of glass. These materials symbolise the scars left by fire, through which water flows as a regenerative lifeblood. This concept recalls Antoine Lavoisier's celebrated maxim, "Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed," underscoring the cyclical processes of renewal and regeneration that define the natural world.
The images of fire were filmed in the Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan, a vast sinkhole created in 1971 during exploratory drilling for natural gas. The crater ignited shortly thereafter and has burned continuously ever since, producing a spectacle that is at once mesmerising and unsettling. Its flames stand as a powerful visual testament to both the forces of nature and the unintended consequences of human intervention.
The underwater footage, captured at various locations throughout the Mediterranean Sea, reveals a more tranquil yet no less powerful manifestation of the element of water. Evocative and meditative, these images suggest serenity and recollections of the amniotic fluid from which life begins. Beneath their apparent calm lies immense latent energy. Water and fire thus reveal themselves as opposing yet complementary forces—essential, magnificent, and perpetually engaged in the work of transformation and renewal.
The harmony of opposites is neither simple nor gentle. It often emerges through tension, conflict, and eventual reconciliation. It is composed of countless nuances and facets, much like the passage of light and image through glass. In this way, water and fire articulate a compelling visual duality that permeates the entire exhibition.
Throughout the exhibition, a continuous dialogue unfolds between these two elemental forces, offering visitors an aesthetic experience that oscillates between the realism of moving images and the imaginative dimension of painting. The video sculpture, in particular, reconciles these two languages within a single visual synthesis of image, reality, and emotion, creating an immersive interplay of light and sound that transports viewers into a hypnotic and deeply evocative environment.
Nataša Radojević