What does your practice focus on?
I work on two fronts: the artistic direction of the Bottega delle Stelle workshop, and my ceramic sculptures, which together with my graphic-pictorial studies on paper, are aimed at the public of art galleries.
What inspires your work?
All of my work is inspired by the natural world: animals, trees, mountains, woods and stars, together with childhood memories, such as the fairy tales that my grandfather used to make up, a smoking stove, domestic landscapes...
©Riccardo Biavati
How do you mingle tradition and innovation?
My ceramics are a kind of homage to ancient artefacts and their history. I investigate the world of prehistoric but also popular ceramics, creating ceramic objects with an elementary, deliberately childlike expressiveness.
How would you define craftsmanship?
I believe that manual skill alone is not enough to define a product of art. Often they are simply models handed down over time and perpetuated without any variation. But when you speak of "applied arts", craftsmanship merges with cultural concepts, creative methods linked to the present.