There is in Bruno Gambone’s artistic practice a hidden way that sometimes eludes immediate perception. It is almost a legacy of sensations deposited in his soul. Looking carefully, all this began way back when Gambone forged his culture and experiences, which we then find with a breadth of expressiveness in his works. He took his first steps in Florence in the 1950s, in the studio of his father Guido, a well-known ceramics artist. He was a very active part of the lively Florentine scene. This was then followed by the enriching artistic experience of his time in New York between 1962 and 1967, and then his contacts with the Milanese art world towards the end of the ‘60s. Finally, he returned to Florence in 1969, where he immersed himself almost totally in the expressive form that was highly congenial to him and close to his heart: ceramics.
Tracing this long path can help us to understand the significance and success of Gambone’s works, because his artistic practice is clearly informed by multiple experiences. His language, distinguished by a very personal idiom, sets in motion an intense creative process that the artist, with great determination, does not hesitate to revise. It is the fruit of continual inquiry that reflects a firm wish to explore every expressive possibility. Gambone loves challenges, especially ones he sets himself. Attained goals do not have the time to become habits but are stimuli that induce an incessant need for innovation. He transforms matter into structures packed with vitality, from which the deep link with centuries-old artisanal practices shines through. And it is here that his creative instinct kicks in, resulting in surprising work of the highest quality. Matter is meekly responsive to his commands, and with a vital impulse is transformed into elegant and original structures.
Ceramics is not his only field of inquiry; it became his favorite expressive medium from 1969. After a brief period in his youth, above all in the workshop of his father Guido, he acquired experience in the fields of painting, sculpture, and theatre. It was in the ‘70s that Gambone became a leading figure in ceramics, engaging in creative events where nothing was left to casual acts but where everything was regulated by a specific and pondered analysis that followed every phase of the realization process. It is on these works that I would like to focus. Initially, he mainly used majolica, exploring some unusual lines of inquiry that gave rise to very brightly colored works. There was a prevalence of intense reds, soft pinks, turquoises, and yellows that accentuated the extremely varied forms. However, grès would come to be Gambone’s favorite ceramic material. A significant example is the series of bottles presented at the Venice Biennale in 1972, comprising simple but elegantly rendered volumes. In this series of works, produced in different formats, it is quite apparent that the compositional structure is governed by a well-balanced relationship between volumes organized according to rational criteria. This is also due to a meticulous attention for detail, for example the accentuation of the edges, which he sometimes marks in a darker color to give a sense of greater energy to the whole. From grès he extracts ideas for forms that are well suited to the contemporary world, even when the references seem to hark back to models from archaic worlds. They might be dark discs with a dense radial pattern, bringing to mind ancient solar cults, or stoneware such as various types of bowls that clearly echo ancient civilizations. Very much to the fore in these cases are the rough surfaces, fractures, or corrosions reminiscent of time-consumed archaeological finds. At the beginning of the ‘70s, the artist produced works permeated with archaic overtones, often achieved by means of particular procedures. Sometimes he inserts pieces of polystyrene into the ceramic before firing, which melt in the kiln leaving lacunae in the finished piece. These solutions, though producing the effect of a primitive coarseness, are surprisingly used by Gambone even with delicate materials like porcelain. This is placed within the compositional structure in thick trickles, diminishing the formal rigor of the structure and enlivening the surfaces with very free rhythms.
Gambone has succeeded in producing an extremely varied and stylistically personal typological repertoire. Without ever surrendering to the inclination to seek originality for its own sake, the artist presents works distinguished by simple and elegant structural lines. In his output of vases, bowls, plates, sculptures, and tiles, his style is unmistakable. Every aspect of each piece has been studied with care, especially the relationships between the dimensions. Works are conceived and gauged so that every minute element complies with an organizing principle that reflects the need for rationality even when the work does not conform to any habitual type.
Often these are small interventions such as tiny cable work decoration or a slight flattening of the rim, which, skillfully orchestrated, produce original images. Even when he draws on popular schemes, Gambone succeeds in filtering tradition through the syntax of his language in order to obtain very modern results. Where his iconographic inspiration comes from the animal world, as in the Fantastic Animals series, his interpretation is always very singular. The various animal elements comply with a compositional structure regulated by rigorous geometric schemes with essential lines.
With the skill of a great carver, the artist outlines shapes with evident formal reductions variously articulated by crests and slants. Even the color range is fairly simple, so as not to distract attention from the various elements in the composition. The surfaces are covered with a fluid white glaze with a velvety effect, with which he combines a few brown touches to emphasize certain details. Glazes with pale, soft hues characterize a large part of Gambone’s output. They cover the surfaces of pieces with angular geometric forms and on shapes with rounder lines, and they are contrasted with very dark tones or paired with the original color of the material. Indeed, color solutions represent an important field of inquiry for Gambone. He usually limits himself to just a few colors, which, together with a range of natural colors characterizing the various kinds of grès he employs, derive above all from his careful use of glazes. In the 1970s he obtained very unusual and powerful effects with black, brightly reflecting glazes. As usual, in using them, he did not rely on chance effects but arranged them on the surfaces in a skillfully measured manner, organizing them in rigorous geometric scores, or, sometimes, in less rigorous schemes with a freer sign leaving traces of calligraphic elegance.
Successful experimentation conducted at the beginning of the ‘90s resulted in several much livelier color ranges, which found interesting application on a wide variety of pieces. These decorative solutions are based on rigorous geometric schemes where the colors are arranged in a dense tessellated pattern with rhythmic cadences and where every single element is closely connected with the other elements of the work to produce a very balanced formal result. Moreover, it cannot escape notice how, for Gambone, color is not just a decorative effect for its own sake but also a means of achieving a carefully considered correspondence between the spatial organization of the various compositional elements and the color solution, whether manifested in orderly fields or in abstract signs freely arranged on the surfaces.
As a prominent figure in the world of international contemporary ceramics, Bruno Gambone has built a world of his own, where his projects are transformed through constant innovation into works of sublime poetry.