Qualifications and Training
FORMAL TRAINING
Classical Roman Portraits
Mosaic Art School in Ravenna (Italy) [March 2013]
Portrait making using hand-cut marble, smalti and stone using the hammer and hardie. Learnt the lime putty method of making mosaics.
Contemporary Portraiture
The Chicago Mosaic School (Chicago, USA) [May 2016]
Usage of hand cut smalti (from smalti pizzas). Using the hammer and hardie for cutting and thin set medium for placing and sticking. Cutting tesserae into non-uniform organic shapes, each different from another, that could be fitted together to form the contours of the face. Refining the skill of chiselling the tesserae on the hammer and hardie so they could fit together – yet be seen in the form of an undulating line.
Personal Interactions
Working with Hammer and Hardie
Marco Bravura, Italian mosaic artist (Moscow, Russia) [2011-12]
Bravura’s painterly colour transitions using Venetian glass smalti, fine-tuned with the usage of traditional hammer and hardie. He is connected to the Mosaic Art School in Ravenna, Italy.
Creating Pulse and Vitality
Sonia King, American mosaic artist (Moscow, Russia) [September 2011]
King’s compositions frequently convey ‘fanning’motion—swirling or bursting across the surface. Tesserae are laid in varied, dynamic directions, creating a sense of pulse and vitality.
Co-existence of structure and spontaneity
Toyoharu Kii, Japanese mosaic artist (Chicago, USA) [May, 2016]
Kii’s compositions often juxtapose areas of disciplined, directional tesserae with sections that appear intentionally unstructured. This contrast generates visual tension and rhythm, suggesting natural processes where order gradually gives way to organic flux.