The Soli collection bears the signature of Mario De Biasi, one of the leading figures of twentieth-century Italian photography and an artist capable of interpreting his era through a gaze that was at once rigorous, poetic, and deeply human. Born in 1923, De Biasi was among the great protagonists of European reportage photography, closely associated with the historic magazine Epoca, for which he worked for many years as one of its most authoritative photographers.
His images, intense yet measured, portrayed the world through a rare sensitivity, able to capture the essence of places and people beyond visible appearances. In his reportage work, photography never remained mere documentation: it became a search for balance, an observation of light, and a construction of rhythm and meaning. It is precisely this vision that makes his encounter with Cerasarda such a significant moment in the history of the manufactory.
During the years of De Biasi’s artistic maturity, Cerasarda established itself as one of the most vibrant centers of Italian ceramic experimentation. Founded in 1963 in the heart of Costa Smeralda, the manufactory was created with the intention of developing a contemporary decorative language deeply rooted in the spirit of Sardinia. Artists, architects, and decorators were invited to engage with ceramic material, transforming it into a space for dialogue between artisanal tradition and modern aesthetic research.
It is within this context that the Soli collection took shape, becoming one of the most refined and intellectually sophisticated expressions of Cerasarda’s production. Here, De Biasi translated his photographic vision into an essential visual alphabet, giving the symbol of the sun a dimension that is both primordial and contemporary.
The Sun as an Archetypal Form
In Mario De Biasi’s poetics, the sun is never represented in a descriptive or illustrative way. Instead, it becomes an absolute sign, a universal archetype connected to origin, energy, and the natural rhythm of Mediterranean light.
The compositions unfold through pure, calibrated, and essential geometries. The graphic sign recalls the language of photography: balance, reduction, and tension between light and shadow. Nothing is superfluous. Every element is designed to evoke a perception rather than simply depict an image.
In this transition from photography to ceramics, there is no rupture, but rather a natural continuity of artistic research. As in his photographs, De Biasi pursues essentiality, recognizing in the simple sign the highest form of visual expression. The ceramic surface thus becomes a contemplative space in which light, instead of being captured through the lens, is evoked through gesture, color, and material.
Light, Rhythm, and Matter
Light is the true center of the Soli collection. Not a descriptive light, but an abstract, almost spiritual presence that moves across the surfaces and defines their visual rhythm.
The glazes reflect and absorb light in different ways, generating depth, chromatic variations, and material vibrations that change according to the viewer’s perspective and the surrounding space. The surfaces become alive, mutable, capable of establishing a continuous dialogue with their environment.
The chromatic choices also recall the Mediterranean landscape: warm, intense, luminous tones that evoke the earth, the sun, and the sea of Sardinia. Ceramics thus become a place where photography and craftsmanship meet through a shared language founded on synthesis, light, and the evocative power of form.
A Cultural Vision of Ceramics
The presence of Mario De Biasi’s signature within Cerasarda’s production testifies to the manufactory’s cultural vocation, conceived not merely as a productive reality, but as a creative laboratory open to dialogue among different artistic disciplines.
Collaborations with artists and interpreters from diverse worlds — from photography to architecture, from painting to design — helped define a unique aesthetic capable of transforming ceramics into a form of contemporary storytelling deeply connected to Mediterranean identity.
Within this context, the Soli collection still retains the value of a dual testimony: that of an artist who made light his expressive medium, and that of a manufactory able to transform ceramics into a meeting place for arts, knowledge, and visions.
Each piece continues to tell the story of an unrepeatable season of Italian creativity, in which the boundaries between art, photography, and craftsmanship dissolved, giving rise to a new, essential, and timeless language.