Giovanni Ilardi

A strong youthful passion for sculpture initially pushes Giovanni Ilardi to shape that material he considered alive and which is constitutive ” of the ” belly ” of Naples itself: the tuff.
Then an almost casual encounter with the goldsmith’s art takes place, whose many affinities with the art of sculpture immediately intrigue and fascinate him.

Starting as a self-taught artist, he attends the workshops of artisans observing , studying and learning the ancient goldsmith techniques . He then processes them in time and adapt them to his own style . Manual skills and techniques acquired with the sculpture will soon prove a fundamental basic expertise even for the beginning of his craft :

” At the beginning of my activity, the starting point of my creativity was the design, then the ideas; just like I used to do in sculpture, I brought them directly on the material even when creating jewels”.

This approach to material allowed him to develop a personal creative and productive process in “constant evolution”, where the initial idea seems only to “hint” at what the hands are then physically to shape and mold, thus realizing objects that are a refined synthesis of “visions and modeling” .

Giovanni Ilardi looks at the natural world, the strength of its constituent elements in order to find inspiration for his creations: many of his creations have been realized thanks to the suggestions after an excursion into nature or to the aerial visions when gliding through the air.

If you “closely” look at his rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants and earrings, you feel like observing a “microcosm” placed under a magnifying glass: the movement of the wind, the dancing water, the porosity of the rock, the roundness of the stones, the delicate bend of the leaves .

“I am constantly looking for new models … and in my opinion this has allowed me to go on doing my job even in a time of economic crisis”.

Thus, by satisfying only the need to express his creativity and personality, which pushes him to a constant search for ideas, subjects and new forms for its handmade creations, Giovanni Ilardi has been able to find an effective personal response to the difficulties that such “hard times”, as the current ones, pose to art artisans.

Giovanni has not jealously kept for himself, as often happens in different sectors, the treasure of expertise, techniques and professional experiences he has developed in these years; he has instead opened his workshop several times to offer his time, attention and knowledge to the young students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, thus allowing them to trace their personal creative craft course benefiting from the experience they had in his “laboratory”.

“Though problematic and contraddictory, Naples still is a city where you can breathe Art”

His words show the strong and positive influence the city of Naples exercises on his work and creations, as well as his daily living plunged in that extraordinary form of human interaction which has belonged (almost exclusively) to Neapolitan people for centuries.

And Giovanni Ilardi undoubtedly gives his contribution to that atmosphere in Naples where “you
can breathe Art” through his creations, his art, and his personal way ‘to be’ a Neapolitan artisan.