PAOLO SCARPA - glass artist in Venice with the ancient technique in lost wax

Paolo Scarpa
Coming from the world of design, and finding it too “limiting”,
at 30 years of age Paolo Scarpa decided to begin experimenting with glass,
creating new forms, new applications, and new techniques of firing
that are inspired, paradoxically, by the most ancient method:
fusion (almost entirely abandoned by Murano because it was too difficult,
too costly and not feasible on a mass production level).

Following five years of experiments and research he focused his attention
on the human form: the musculature - the power in the tendons of men,
the sinuous harmony and sensuality of women.

Their shapes seem to drift in and out from their own material, detached and yet belonging at the same time.
At the very center of his art, therefore, Paolo Scarpa places man, his story and existence and he recounts these through the medium of glass, and it is light which provides its meaning, and brings it to life.

Paolo Scarpa formally introduced his work to the world with an exhibit in the cloisters at S. Apollonia, in San Marco, Venice in March 2004, showing a Via Crucis of Jesus made of 15 reliefs each composed by solid backlit emerald glass.

But Paolo Scarpa is not just working with glass alone: he is also devising a mega-installation involving glass, steel, plexiglass, light, water and large windows that people can walk among (and enjoy in other ways) and meet set up in large interior public spaces (churches, hotels, government buildings …) and exterior spaces as well (parks, city squares …) including commemorative gardens, memorial sites, and places for meditation and prayer.

the technique

My reliefs, like all of my glass sculptures, are entirely conceived and executed by myself alone.
That's the procedure.
I start with a sketch and shape it in clay or lost wax, after which I create a wooden structure that holds it into which I pour a casting made of refractive plaster, which once dry is then hollowed out of its clay or lost wax, brought to a liquid state with steam at a temperature of 100° C, which leaves me with a negative mold of my work.

Once the molds are dried, I bring them to my glass laboratory in Murano, where I have my kilns for the fusion work.
I place the molds into the kilns and fill them with “cotisso” fragments of Murano glass, selecting the colors that interest me, and I begin the fusion process.
After many days, when the fusion is complete, I open the kiln and extract the mold and chip away at the plaster until revealing the glass sculptures beneath, then I put them through the “moleria” grinding, then sanding, and finally I polish them with cork and oil.

Essentially I have modified and adapted techniques of fusion with lost wax normally used for bronze, obtaining however the fusion with solid glass.
This fusion technique with lost wax, modified this way for glass, has allowed me to conceive and create subjects that would otherwise be entirely impossible to do working with glass according to the usual techniques employed at Murano, and to create unique pieces with immense artistic value.