At the Chicago Mosaic School, we call him the Maestro, and with over 50 years of experience as a professional mosaicist he more than lives up to the title. In May, CMS is thrilled to welcome back one of our most venerable visiting artists, Verdiano Marzi. Verdiano first connected with our school when Karen Ami, then acting as president of the Society of American Mosaic Artists (SAMA), invited him to present at the annual conference and teach a workshop at The Chicago Mosaic School. The instant spark of their friendship paved the way for Marzi to conduct an annual residency at CMS that is now in its ninth year, and to exhibit with the Gallery of Contemporary Mosaics many times over, including most recently at SOFA Chicago and Gallery 1070 as part of the GOCM pop-up exhibition.
Verdiano takes a modest approach to self appraisal, suggesting that he is “just like any other artist… I’m inspired by the details of my own personal life and relationships.”* But few artists in the world of mosaics can claim an educational pedigree on par with his: he is a graduate of the Istituto Statale d’Arte per il Mosaico and the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Ravenna, a key locus for ancient mosaics, and attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he currently lives. Originally trained in ancient techniques for reproduction and restoration, Verdiano longed to expand his personal practice and moved to Paris as a young man in the 1970s to experiment with a more modern and contemporary aesthetic.
As an artist Verdiano tackles broad human themes such as suffering and hope in crises using a vibrant, modern aesthetic sensibility. Coming from a strict religious upbringing, he works frequently with Christian imagery, particularly angels and icons. These works ruminate on role of saints and angels as messengers, not just in scripture but also within the iconology of popular culture. Verdiano says that the timeless motifs of angels and icons are a conceptual medium through which western culture meditates on our own humanity, our place in the world, and relationships to each other and the metaphysical. He crafts his body of work around a holistic practice that incorporates expressive drawing and sketching both abstract and representational, and occasionally creating sculptural substructures for his mosaics.
As a teacher, Verdiano is thoughtful and empathetic while drawing on his years of experience to expertly demonstrate and guide students in best techniques. He attunes his technical mentorship to the individual aesthetic vision of each student, and relishes in the individuality he finds, stating, “every time I teach, it’s a totally new experience, even if I’m working with students I’ve seen over and over again… Some artists continue to develop variations of the same theme over and over throughout their lives. Similarly, each encounter with a student is like the first time- a totally unique exchange.” In addition to CMS, he has taught all over the world, including his native Italy, Russia, Cuba, and his home country of France.
If you would like to have the incredible experience of learning with the Maestro, please follow the links to his upcoming Evening Master Class.
*All quotes from Maestro Marzi are paraphrased translations from French.
Written by Grace Walsh
Learn more about Verdiano here