Vincenzo De Cotiis’s Material Transformation

In Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s New York City space, cast white bronze and hand-painted sculpted Murano glass come together in an installation that toes the line between the concrete and the mimetic. Aggressively organic and just a little sci-fi, Vincenzo De Cotiis’s multi-piece spatial composition harkens back to Monet’s later landscapes, which became increasingly abstract as cataracts took his sight. “Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang,” on view through February 13, is as immersive as a painting: a lily pond, reimagined through sculpture.

Originally previewed at Milan Design Week, the show arrived in New York late last year fully realized—a cohesive, three-dimensional abstracted environment composed of 50 unique works. Moving through the show is, as the title (translated: “I Walked Barefoot in the Pond”) suggests, something like wading through an imagined marshy dreamscape full of reflections and forms that rise and shift with the changing of one’s vantage point. There’s no fixed visual anchor here, no narrative; a specially curated ambient soundtrack deepens the spell, inviting the viewer to experience the work at a meditative pace.

De Cotiis has described the water lily as a motif that is both “serene and restless,” and his works embrace that duality. Skeletal stems stretch and float, and polished surfaces recall not just the flower but something alien, creating an uncanny sense of tension between solidity and translucence, stillness and movement. Where Monet recorded abstracted worlds on canvas, De Cotiis does so in space.

It’s a delight to see design and art dissolve into each other this completely. “His approach to materials often feels otherworldly, creating reflective surfaces and transforming imperfection and patina into sources of beauty,” Carpenters Workshop Gallery founders Julien Lombrail and Loïc Le Gaillard told Observer when we caught up with them after the show’s opening to learn more about “Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang” and its genesis.

De Cotiis draws inspiration from Monet’s late water lily landscapes, where vision dissolves into abstraction; how does this exhibition extend or transform that lineage for a contemporary audience?

Vincenzo De Cotiis has reimagined a timeless masterpiece for a modern age. Monet’s water scene becomes a sculptural landscape in this exhibition, a space in which objects crafted from glass and bronze recreate a fluid, immersive experience of light and nature. De Cotiis is therefore embracing the evocative, transcendental nature of the water lilies while expressing it through a contemporary sculptural language.

With 50 unique works assembled as a single cohesive environment, the works come together like a landscape; how did you navigate the tension between individual pieces and the collective installation?

“Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang” is presented as a singular, cohesive installation; however, it consists of a multitude of individual artworks. Beyond what is displayed in the exhibition itself, this body of work comprises around 50 unique works in total. For the exhibition, these sculptural elements come together to contribute to the overall experience of the installation, evoking the sensation of wading barefoot through an imagined landscape. At the same time, De Cotiis has designed each piece to carry individual significance and identity. This means that, whether taken individually or collectively, the works evoke powerful ideas of materiality, light, abstraction and imagination.

De Cotiis often speaks about memory, distortion and transformation in his practice; how do these ideas manifest most clearly for you in this particular exhibition?

The exhibition is largely about material transformation. The sculptures appear as enigmatic creatures in distorted forms; they have surreal, skeletal stems, much like the elongated, fluid legs of water lilies that move beneath the surface. As viewers navigate the installation, their perception of these objects shifts with movement and proximity. Anchored in motion, this dynamic spatial composition explores how memory and perception can be distorted or transformed.

The exhibition asks viewers to slow down, notice subtle shifts of light and absorb nuance; how does that kind of sensory experience resonate in New York, a city defined by speed?

Through organic forms and shifting reflections, this installation is designed to evoke a contemplative sense of nature. De Cotiis captures the essence of water through the use of painted Murano glass and cast white bronze. Light refracts across the surfaces of the sculptures, creating an interplay of opacity and translucency. This is particularly significant within the context of fast-paced urban life, which risks detaching us from the transformative power of the natural world. By recreating the sensation of a pond, where ethereal creatures drift, dissolve and reappear, the installation invites viewers to slow down and consider the forces of nature that shape our environment.

What do you think De Cotiis is contributing to current conversations around materiality and the future of sculptural practice?

He brings a distinctive sculptural language to contemporary discourse, one shaped by parallelisms of space and time. He is particularly interested in how ancient idioms can merge with futuristic forms and expressions. His approach to materials often feels otherworldly, creating reflective surfaces and transforming imperfection and patina into sources of beauty. In a design landscape where age-old materials are constantly being reinvented, De Cotiis suggests that crafted objects can function either as timeworn relics or as visions of future worlds.

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