Don’t miss: Vincenzo De Cotiis at Carpenters Workshop Gallery

In the Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s New York City gallery space, hand-painted white bronze Murano glass comes together in an installation that straddles the line between concrete and mimetic. Aggressive Organic and just a little sci-fi, Vincenzo De Cotiis’s multi-layered spatial composition echoes Monet’s later landscapes, which became more abstract as his eyes began to see. “Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang,” on view through February 13, is as much a painting as a painting: a lily pond, reimagined in sculpture.

Previewed during Milan Design Week, the exhibition arrived in New York late last year fully realized—a compact, three-dimensional space made up of 50 unique works. The continuation of the exhibition is as the title (translated as: “I Walked Empty in the Lake”) suggests, something like walking through an imaginary swamp filled with reflections and forms that rise and move with the change of one’s point of view. There is no fixed visual anchor here, no narrative; a specially selected ambient soundtrack deepens the spell, inviting the viewer to experience the work at a meditative pace.

De Cotiis has described the water lily as a “calm and restless” motif, and his works embrace both. The skeletal stems stretch and float, and the polished surfaces are reminiscent not only of a flower but of something unusual, creating a mysterious sense of tension between solidity and flexibility, stillness and movement. Where Monet carved abstract worlds on canvas, De Cotiis did so in space.

It’s great to see design and art melt into one in this whole. “His approach often feels otherworldly, creating spectacular spaces and turning imperfections and patina into sources of beauty,” Carpenters Workshop Gallery Founders Julien Lombrail and Loïc Le Gaillard told the Observer when we caught up with them after the exhibition opened to learn more about “Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Éta genesis.

De Cotiis draws inspiration from Monet’s landscapes of water lilies, where vision dissolves into abstraction; How does this show expand or change that current audience?

Vincenzo De Cotiis has reimagined a timeless masterpiece for the modern era. Monet’s water landscape becomes the focal point of the exhibition, a space where objects designed in glass and bronze recreate a fluid, concentrated sense of light and nature. De Cotiis therefore embraces the evocative nature, transcending the nature of water lilies while expressing it in a contemporary sculptural language.

With 50 unique works grouped together as one cohesive space, the works come together like a landscape; how did you navigate the tension between the individual pieces and the installation of the collection?

“Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang” is presented as a single, unified installation; however, it contains a number of individual works of art. Beyond what is shown in the exhibition itself, this body of work includes approximately 50 unique works in total. In the exhibition, these sculptural elements come together to prove a total installation experience, evoking the sensation of paddling barefoot through an imagined landscape. At the same time, De Cotiis designed each piece to carry individual value and identity. This means that, whether taken individually or as a group, the works evoke powerful ideas of materiality, light, invisibility and imagination.

De Cotiis often talks about memory, distortion and transformation in his work; How do these ideas appear most clearly to you in this particular show?

This show is about the transformation of the property. The sculptures appear as mysterious creatures with twisted forms; they have bony stems, like the long, liquid legs of underwater water lilies. As viewers move around the installation, their perception of these objects changes through movement and proximity. Focused on movement, this dynamic landscape explores how memory and perception can be distorted or transformed.

The exhibition asks viewers to slow down, notice the subtle changes in light and absorb the contrast; How does that kind of nerve feel in New York, a city defined by speed?

Using organic forms and dynamic reflections, this installation is designed to evoke a sense of nature. De Cotiis captures the essence of water by using painted Murano glass and white bronze. Light shines through the sculpted surfaces, creating a blend of blur and transition. This is especially important in the context of fast-paced urban life, which risks removing us from the transformative power of the natural world. By recreating the feeling of a lake, where ethereal creatures drift, dissolve and reappear, the installation invites viewers to slow down and contemplate the forces of nature that shape our environment.

What do you think De Cotiis contributes to current discussions about materialism and the future of the practice of recording?

He brings a different recorded language to today’s speech, shaped by the similarities of place and time. He is particularly interested in how ancient idioms can combine with future forms and idioms. His approach often feels like one of the world, creating bright spaces and turning imperfections and patina into sources of beauty. In a design environment where classics are constantly being reinvented, De Cotiis suggests that imagined objects can serve as worn relics or as visions of future worlds.

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