The Marina Bastianello Gallery, on the occasion of The Venice Glass Week 2023, hosts the brand Marina and Susanna Sent, which since 1993 has been identified with elegant creations in Murano glass, from jewelry, the strength and historical start of the brand, to the most recent sculptures. Inspired by water and the reflections of the lagoon, these are poetic objects, suspended between the evanescence and the material consistency of glass, playing with the ephemeral and the material to celebrate the expressiveness of the spontaneous gesture, typical of the informal in art.
In the natural world, the nest is an archetypal safe place, but it also represents broader concepts such as affection, intimacy, care, dedication, and the generation of life.
The level of care and attention that birds typically devote to the construction of their nests can be seen in the work of Marina and Susanna Sent, two designers from Murano, noted over the years for their highly original glass jewellery. More recently, they have ventured into the world of sculptural objects where their combination of the bold colours traditionally used in Murano glass – and characteristic of the Sent’s style – and a minimalist approach to shape and form, epitomises their style of glassmaking.
The ‘hallmark’ present in all the Sent’s objects – from small items of jewellery to large sculptures – is a poetic sense of calm, the result of painstaking research into shape and form, often incorporating colours inspired by the water and colours of the Venetian lagoon.
In the Nido project, the form is simply a pretext for recounting the creative process. Experimentation is the driving force behind the form, while the finished sculpture is testimony to an uncontrollable process as imponderable as the nature of glass.
Glass, a material sometimes considered to lie on the edge between chemistry and alchemy, is an ancient material – born of fire and sand – that leads to unexpected results for the most daring designers. In fact, glass objects are first conceived and created, then designed. This overturning of the design phase for objects made of glass, compared to the design phase of many other objects, is due precisely to the unstable, unpredictable, and mysterious nature of glass. Moreover, combining glass with other materials impacts on and modifies the initial idea.
Marina and Susanna Sent – always keen on experimenting with the use of materials – have used the Nido project as an opportunity to try out new ways of combining powders, water, and metals with glass.
A long series of tests and trials has resulted in a unique, spontaneous, sculptural evocation of the nest – its delicate structure encased in solid glass.
As in nature, each nest is different. For Marina and Susanna, who often strive to make what is tangible intangible, the nest – a place of birth, growth, caring, and sharing – is a solid expression of commitment, ingenuity, and energy in work and in life.
