MILANTRACE Moment with Studiopepe at Out Of The Blue.

It’s time for our third and final (for now) MILANTRACE Moment with the inimitable Studiopepe. Hooray! My love for these ladies is well documented on these pages, but in case you’re new to Yellowtrace, here’s a little intro. Studiopepe is a Milan-based design agency, founded by Arianna Lelli Mami & Chiara Di Pinto in 2006. These two clever designers have carved out a unique niche with their eclectic and layered aesthetic, and a visionary and multidisciplinary approach to design. This year at Milan Design Week, Studiopepe designed, styled and zhooshed for a number of brands, also showing products in a number of design events. But one of their projects in particular stood out to me, as it came straight from their gorgeous little hearts as a personal experiment.

‘Out of the Blue’ collection, comprising eight objects, is a series of geometric plaster volumes brushed with a cyanotype solution and then left in the sunlight. The angle of the sun, the length of the exposure and the forms themselves all contribute to the appearance and hue of ‘shadows’ cast upon the objects. Studiopepe’s exploration of the relationship between form, light, and colour, embodies architectural principles of light and architecture on a micro scale. The study is also based upon the historic inheritance derived from the origins of photography.

It all began in 1800 with the experiments conducted by Thomas Wedgwood using the camera obscura, which in turn, was initially used by the artisans in his father’s factory for making decorations on ceramic, and his study of silver nitrate and its sensitivity to light. The direct heirs to these experiments with light and materials, without passing through the photographic camera itself, are the photograms made by Man Ray. According to Man Ray, the photogram is an automatic action (that has the same matrix as the automatic writings of the surrealists). In this action, the artist is the audience to his or her own opus, in which there should be as little intervention as possible in the artistic ‘gesture’.

Out of the Blue is an idiomatic expression in English that describes an event that occurs unexpectedly. The blue refers to the sky in which something unexpected suddenly appears. Taken literally, something comes forth “out of the blue” or “emerges from the blue”, as though the colour blue in this study might assume its own physical form.

The collection of Studiopepe sculptures investigates the correspondence between sunlight and the surface, through the study of form. The photographic process behind the cyanotype makes this mutable relationship visible (cyan comes from the ancient Greek word kýanos which means dark blue).

The colour blue, in all of its shades and depending upon various factors combined together, becomes the direct result of this encounter. Intrinsically, it tells us the story behind how the object was manufactured, the length of its exposure to sunlight after being brushed with the cyanotype solution, and the light conditions during that timeframe. These coordinates are the name of the object itself, defining its identity and uniqueness.

Amazing, no? Such an interesting train of thought and so beautifully executed. And what’s even more amazing is how lovely and genuine Arianna and Chiara really are. Go on, watch the video. I think it will give you a pretty good idea of how wonderful they really are. For me, it’s nothing but love and respect to the power of ten.