I don’t remember the exact moment I realized that paper could hold everything: order and chaos, emotion and thought.
But I do remember the first time that, by folding it, I felt like I was also shaping something within myself.
I’m an engineer working in the aerospace sector and a visual artist.
Two identities that, rather than conflicting, continuously nourish one another.
In engineering, I’ve learned precision, structure, the logic of systems — but it’s in art that I’ve found a space to explore the invisible: emotions, memories, transformation, silence.
Paper is my chosen language. It’s fragile but resilient, ordinary yet infinitely expressive.
It doesn’t impose — it listens. It receives the fold, the cut, the gesture, and transforms them into presence.
My works are built through a process that borders on meditation: the repetition of shapes, the search for balance, the dialogue between order and spontaneity.
Each composition arises from an intuitive geometric grammar.
Inspired by Op Art, low-poly aesthetics, and spatial design, I create immersive patterns that play with depth, shadow, rhythm, and illusion.
But behind every pattern, there is a personal story — a reflection on time, the melancholy of memory, or the tension between what is seen and what is felt.
I often think of my artworks as thresholds — not objects to interpret, but spaces to cross.
They don’t impose a narrative; they offer a presence. They ask for time, for slowness.
They invite the viewer to linger, to lose themselves in the rhythm of repetition, in the vibration of color, in the tension between light and shadow.
Each fold, each triangle, each void is a subtle suggestion — a pause between thought and feeling, logic and intuition.
Because geometry, for me, is not a boundary — it’s a door.
A door to something beyond the visible. A structure that doesn’t contain, but reveals.
An architecture of silence, where the viewer can project their own memories, their own inner landscapes.
I exhibit regularly in contemporary art fairs and collaborate with collectors, interior designers, and galleries who are looking for something that speaks both to the eye and to the inner world.
But the moment I cherish the most is the one no one sees: the silent encounter in the studio,
when a blank sheet of paper becomes a living surface.
A beginning. A possibility. A space yet to be discovered.
© 2020 Massimiliano De Florio
