An article on Nerosicilia from the online magazine dedicated to design and architecture, written by Luca Maci (January 2017).
An explosion of design from Etna
Lava stone creatives conquer big brands
There are stories of products that correspond to stories of men. This is the case with the lava coatings of Nero Sicilia and Jpeglab, which have grown together, in symbiosis.
In 2009, due to the economic crisis affecting the sector, Massimo Barbini and Giovanni Salerno, like others, were forced to leave their jobs at the design office of Frama Mosaici, a subcontractor in the Ragusa region specialising in the production of glass coverings. The crisis, however, did not interrupt the relationship, but rather strengthened it. Thus, at the same time as the birth of the Jpeglab studio, the same industrial group decided to differentiate its activities and offerings by setting up a new company dedicated to the transformation of lava stone from Etna, developing with its former employees, to whom it entrusted the artistic direction, the research carried out over the years and hitherto shelved on the reuse of production waste in new material combinations.
The well-established island technique of ceramising the wear surface of lava slabs (applied until then in a homogeneous manner as a basis for hand-painted decoration) is declined in a variegated series of decorative textures, inspired by grandmothers' ancient embroideries, in a wide range of silk-screen printed screens transferred onto the lava surface and fixed by means of a firing system (one hour, one and a half hours at 1000-1300 °C) carried out on large formats in specially designed continuous roller kilns. The interweaving of the powder filament, obtained by recycling the glass of discarded monitors and televisions, ground and mixed with oxides for colouring, through its wide voids does not occlude the perception of the lava support, enhancing, on the contrary, its intensity through a skilful play of contrasts and reflections.
The result is enthusiastic and conquers the markets in a short time to reach, in 2014, the collaboration with Boffi for the supply of the tops and coverings for the kitchens of the Salinas series (Wallpaper Design Awards 2015, EDIDA 2015 as Best Kitchen, Menzione D'Onore for the Compasso d'Oro ADI 2016) designed by Patricia Urquiola, who has taken care of the design of a new rhomboidal texture.
From the same research into recycling, Jpeglab, now specialising in ceramic products, designed Multiplem in 2016 for Frama Mosaici, a modular system in different geometric tesserae that earned him selection for the ADI Design Index.
