The Head Vases
They are protagonists of the artisan iconography of Sicily, and are born from a gesture that is lost in myth.
That story continues with us.
They are protagonists of the artisan iconography of Sicily, and are born from a gesture that is lost in myth.
That story continues with us.
The ancient legend tells of a betrayed maiden and a traitorous Moor. Of a sailor’s promise, made by him to win the girl’s heart. And of the revenge of the young wounded girl, who decided that her Moor would never return to her family beyond the sea: so, he turned her head into a vase, so that new life could sprout inside.
Since that day, this story has become a heritage of Sicilian imagination and craftsmanship, and continues to be told through the anthropomorphic vases, the iconic Head Vases. Over the centuries, the island’s craftsmen have codified new characters, new shapes, new iconographies. For a legend still alive, which Giacomo Alessi tells with the wisdom of his hands.
Do you know what our life is? Yours and mine?
A dream made in Sicily. Maybe we are still there and we are dreaming.
Leonardo Sciascia
Myth is a story that does not die.
That is why we continue to imagine the story of the Moor heads, shaping together, with our hands, the ancient legend and the inspirations of contemporary design.
A knowledge centuries old, a mythical language that will continue to speak to the present.
Ceramic artworks that take the form of the modern age. And, in this way, shaping it.
Some stories are unique, others inimitable: like this selection of Giacomo Alessi’s artworks.
