The Project

The essence of Pantarei project is the artistic expression, the study of shapes and volumes, the experimental vision of finishes and colors of metals.
The mixed use of precious, coarse and semi-precious materials brings out the details.
Emotionality and stylistic originality characterize the “matter caved” of Pantarei Jewels.
“Pantarei Jewels in Art” is a jewelry line born from a personal research of Caterina Bonfiglio, who interprets the evocative and seductive qualities of contemporary jewelry.
Caterina Bonfiglio has a marked aptitude in shaping the material resulting in exclusive collection in a suggestion game and different views, seal of her creativity, fluctuating between minimalist rigour and organic explosiveness.
Pantarei Jewels are single pieces, entirely handmade privileging the micro-modeling wax among the different “tecniche orafe”.
The imaginative originality and a know-how craftmanship mark a jewel which born as a unique and personal micro-sculpture to wear, that hint to precious without being conventionally.

The Creation

THE CREATION OF JEWELS ARISING FROM THE CONCEPTUAL CRAFTSMANSHIP OF RAW MATERIALS
A material uniqueness of the jewel, always interpreted as the result of suggestions, fascinations, events, passions populating the imagination far before becoming matter and, after its transformation, a land of artistic freedom.
Symbolically, the artist turns to stylistic devices to emphasize the opposites (rough/precious) and keep them involved in a dialogue, to harmonize contrasts, to enhance the charming beauty of spurious materials.
A contemporary jewel which uses experimental methods and materials, although feeding itself with tradition and craftsmanship. This gives strength to those raw and informal traits, often present into Caterina’s/my crafts (scratches, holes, sprains, cuts, crumples, oxidations, erosions…), aimed to convey personality and a sort of vagueness to her/my work. As an alternative, lines and shapes, geometrically minimalist and pure, show her/my freedom in style and her ability to innovate without interruption.
The artist says:
“my freedom of expression owes a lot to the micro-modelling technique, from which my creations arise. I love to play with this freedom.
The most interesting thing is that, thank to this freedom, I am able to create “unique items”. Technically, it is a micro-sculpture work, strictly handmade.
I am wrapped up in this possibility of shaping and sculpting the matter, each time in a one-of-a-kind way. It represents an added value which brings my jewels closer to a handmade artwork.
None of my pieces is mass-produced. This means that there are no multiples and that there are no replicable objects. Only the original piece can be equal to itself. This is why each single piece of my creativity holds a real/true identity.
Going back to technique, all my jewels are “unique” because with the “cera persa” micro-sculpture the chosen metal melts its originating mold, the first matter, the wax, with which the objects are handcrafted. Fire will do everything else.
Paradoxically, the object-jewel comes from a disappearance. That of its originating matrix, the wax and its loss in the second step of its melting.
The jewel thus arises from a run away and burnt matter, evoked in its final shape as memory of that primary substance, now disappeared.
Actually, I always try to follow an emotional research. The precious nobility of the matter is no more the necessary condition to formalize the jewel’s value. Nowadays, jewels tell stories, in a wide and festive variety of languages and significances.
I love my job as the result of my personal, poetical and evocative vision, always suspended between dream and reality. I feed my “objects” with their “otherness”, in the same style as Surrealists, to redeem the unforeseen as last expression.
My jewels inspire this reflection. Instead of being just precious, they are completely at ease with the feelings of anyone who looks at them. They are definitely able to vibrate along their own emotional identity.