Molo di Salsedine

I am born of an afternoon of suspended work: the Molo di Salsedine wallpaper tells of a fishermen’s quay where the nets dry in the wind and the boats rest, scattered, after the labour of the sea. It is the worn planks of the piles, the black tar of the hulls, the rust red of the painted gunwales that tell of a life made of repeated gestures, of braided ropes and of patient waiting.

I like to think that every broad, decided brushstroke, the one that builds the grain of the wood and the fibre of the hemp, still holds the gesture of someone who really looked at that quay before painting it. The stacked creels, the faded barrel, the gulls barely sketched on the horizon: minimal details that, as you come closer, open into a very dense weave of knots and cracks, while the calm water and the wide sky let the composition breathe.

It is a working landscape that becomes, on the wall, a landscape of the mind: the busy quiet of a harbour in the early morning, when everything is still and ready to set off. For a hotel lobby, for an entrance that wants to welcome without clamour, this scene brings a sense of gathered authenticity, of slow time given back with measure.

In our workshop we choose to reproduce the Molo di Salsedine wallpaper as one would a museum work: respecting every crack in the colour, every shadow in the material, so that the painting stays alive even when carried onto the wall, faithful in its texture, intact in its painterly truth.