Marea d’Indaco

I sign this Marea d’Indaco wallpaper as one signs a gesture repeated thousands of times, until it becomes breath: concentric waves following one another without a break, like the sea seen from above on a day of absolute calm.

The design belongs to the tradition of fibrous washi, the Japanese paper pulped by hand, here in its chiyogami form: a seigaiha motif, the classic lattice of concentric arcs overlapping like fans, five or seven fine lines to each wave, set in horizontal bands that interlock edge to edge, each offset by half a step from the one before. From a distance the rhythm is clear and wide, almost hypnotic; close up you find the fine lines, the slightly irregular mark of the cut woodblock, the least accumulation of ink in the curve of each arc.

The palette is that of traditional indigo: deep blue and ink alternating with sky grey and warm ivory, with a few bands lit by a thread of mineral gold or muted vermilion. The fibre of the paper itself surfaces in the thinnest passages of colour, giving the graphic design a tactile life that no industrial print would possess.

In the simplicity of the motif I find the oldest idea of the wave: a principle repeated identical and never identical, the same form the sea has always composed and undone. This is why I choose the Marea d’Indaco wallpaper for interiors that ask for order and breath at once — a home, a studio, a lobby that wants to stay in the memory. WallZad looks after its printing and its hanging with the same patience the washi master gives to the cut block, so that the wave holds the eye from a distance and its weave never disappoints close up.