SENSITIVE GEOMETRIES
Through her objects and set designs, Elisa Ossino highlights a modern, dreamlike world, where time seems to be suspended.
Her geometrically-lined creations draw contemporary spatial landscapes where a certain degree of strangeness meets absolute beauty.
A graduate of the prestigious Polytechnic University of Milan — like Renzo Piano — Elisa Ossino has several strong strings to her bow. Both cerebral and sensitive, she approaches the world transversally.
As a designer — she created the famous "Elementi" lamp for De Padova —, as a stylist for magazines and as an interior decorator, she builds bridges between disciplines and forms that she calls "synergies".
Architect, designer, interior decorator, university lecturer... Where exactly did you start?
Elisa Ossino: After graduating in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Milan, I joined a research group studying the link between linguistics and computer-aided language learning. This allowed me to work with various artists and architects. Together, we explored the synergies which interweave languages with other fields. And this is now my approach before taking on any kind of project.
How do you describe your approach to design?
E. O.: I always start by defining the meaning I want to give a project. I study the place, the choice of materials, and the composition of the color range. I then try, through my sketches, to translate the stories I want my designs to tell. I never choose anything by chance.
Is design a medium of expression for you?
E. O.: I think a project is successful when it can relay a message, set off an emotion without words, without an explanation. I always try to create something strong, ...iconic, ...capable of conveying a contemporary vision of the world.
You give a lot of importance to geometric forms in your work. How does art influence you?
E. O.: The recurrence of geometric lines is clearly one of the most recognizable characteristics of my work. I have a preference for pure forms. I like creating interior landscapes which tend towards the abstract, like living, three-dimensional paintings. In both my installations and real interiors, I love to set up spaces where time seems to stand still.
You recently co-founded H+O, which specializes in tiling, with designer Josephine Akvama Hoffmeyer. Can you tell us more about this new project?
E. O.: It's a multidisciplinary project which I'm very proud of. It was born out of a desire to rethink surfaces as genuine design objects. We created a showroom in an apartment in Milan: a space for experimentation and exhibition in which we presented the installation "Perfect Darkness". Our hand-made clay tiles are no longer reduced to their functional use but considered a key feature of the decoration.
Photo credit: Elisa Ossino, Jessica Soffiati, Tommaso Sartori, Giorgio Possenti
