Notte di Sugi

In my Notte di Sugi wallpaper I relive the ancient Japanese art of charring wood, transposed into a vertical order that measures out the wall like a slow, regular breath.

Every cedar board, marked by the fire, meets the next without a break: the thin battens that cover their joints trace a measured, almost musical cadence, in which the charred black softens into ash greys and graphite gleams. It is a surface that does not repeat itself but varies, board after board, as the real wood it comes from varies.

From a distance it makes up a single continuous plane, severe and silent; close up it opens into fine cracks, into a crazed texture that recalls the skin of a reptile, where the fire has carved reliefs and deep shadows. It is a material that absorbs light rather than reflecting it, and for this reason it suits an intimate room, where the half-light of the bedroom takes in every one of its shades, giving back a sense of shelter and quiet.

I wanted every fibre to stay legible, every imperfection declared: the unpredictability of fire as a guarantee of authenticity. In the WallZad workshop, the Notte di Sugi wallpaper comes from a fine art print that respects the original material, giving back its matt warmth and its tactile depth without betraying its truth.

Notte di Sugi does not decorate a wall: it makes it breathe, slowly, like the wood that inspired it.