Conca di Sirena

I draw my Conca di Sirena wallpaper thinking of the sea as an archive of perfect forms, where every shell tells of a geometry nature took millennia to perfect. It belongs to the Fauna family, the animal kingdom reinterpreted with an almost entomological rigour: here the subject is the shell of Nautilus pompilius, shown whole, its spiral wound on itself in a clean, unbroken curve.

The surface of each shell is crossed by fine radiating bands of terracotta and burnt sienna, while faintly indicated concentric arcs suggest the inner chambers nature builds one after another as it grows. A flat vector line, clean umber outlines, even fields without shading: the technique is as essential as the subject is ancient. One or two shells per bay, set at different angles on a warm, generous, uncluttered ivory ground, let the void weigh as much as the solid.

It is a design that asks to be looked at closely: only then does one find the pale striations crossing the dark bands, a minute detail that rewards attention. In my work for WallZad I wanted this wallpaper to return the same patience as natural growth — every shade, from the ivory to the powder pink of the pearly interior, calibrated by hand before printing. Not just any marine ornament, but a small zoological collection hung on the wall, able to inhabit any room with discreet elegance, from the private house to the formal reception space.