From December 5, 2015 to January 23, 2016 the design-e-space gallery presents "Carte Blanche to Maddalena Rocco".

The Milano-based artist and designer Maddalena Rocco creates everyday objects: walking sticks, decorative boxes, table arts, jewelry; but these objects have a soul. Maddalena's universe is populated with mythological figures, each of whom recounts its own legend. With the exhibition "Carte Blanche to Maddalena Rocco", which presents a wide-ranging sample of the artist's works, the design-e-space gallery provides an insight into this enchanted universe.

We are surrounded in our modern society by objects of yearning and emulation, whose meaning is limited to this: to be objects of desire, which we would like to posses. And yet, when fears or anxieties - hidden deep in our subconscious - resurface, some objects magically become fetishes and amulets endowed with powers that we did not fathom: they revive myths whose origins are inscribed somewhere in the beginning of time.

Madalena is interested in mythological figures. She converts the "logos" into images, faces and symbols. She lovingly engraves the images in precious materials, which become imbued with meaning. The meanings she bestows on objects enable them to retrace the lost path to myth and magic: they metamorphosize into amulets.

Maddalena Rocco's mythical figures:

Neptunus, god of the sea depths, represented by two symbols: a fragment of a Trident and a drop which signifies the sandy sea floor.

Flora, the goddess with her hair in the wind, whose reflection appears in a mirror fragment. Her symbols: the flower and leaf on a branch, the pistil, the seed.

Hypnos, the god of sleep who brings dreams. The revelation of the self. With wings in his hair, his image is always dreamy.

Nyx, the goddess of the night, the queen of the interruption of life. She has wings and a dark veil with which she envelops the world. In a mirror fragment, her gaze is turned towards us.

Sole e Luna, male and female. The polarity between day and night. The yellow and white duality. These are the emblems of our heaven.

Dionysus, the god of the vital force, of ecstasy and dance, the god of vine and ivy, of the earth and the ripening fruit. His symbols are the cup, the bunch of grapes, the vine and the leaf.

Hermes, indomitable and enterprising, discovers that he can produce wonderful sounds out of a turtle shell. We see him through the shell, caressing the strings.

Nemesi, the goddess of ransom. She uses a yardstick to measure destinies and a rudder to correct the uprightness of life. She is a winged figure and her gaze is represented in a triangular mirror fragment.