Tonino Negri, Potter

Atlas of Beauty /

ProductionMaterial Culture, Territorial Development

Tonino Negri was born in Lodi in 1961, studied with some great masters (Gianni Vigorelli and Eugenio Tomiolo,) then opened and ran his own workshop-laboratory: Terra crea. Here, little by little, from the incessant work of his hands come his ceramic masterpieces (stoneware, refractory, engobe, semi-refractory and glaze). Earth, water, fire and air are the recurring primordial elements that inhabit the archetypal forms of Negri's production, where technical expertise and poetry merge. At the centre of his artistic work is almost always the vase, as the place of the archetypal tale, the original container of food and thus of life. The vase in its space can contain light, water, air, earth, and is in itself an infinite place in which to represent the stories of the world. He often adds an internal light to his creations so that the objects are dressed in magic like houses in the night. Such are the great arches built by Negri for the Biblioteca Laudense, which Michele de Lucchi restored in Lodi with a project of extraordinary beauty. Visit the site