Simply Abu Dhabi Magazine XVI

Giampiero Bodino – the Jewellery Maker as Artist Make no mistake, though – Giampiero Bodino is no overnight sensation. As Art Director at the Richemont Group, where he is responsible for cultivating and coordinating the highly unique and distinctive styles of each of the company’s Maisons, Bodino has spent decades tirelessly perfecting his craft, and gearing up to launch his own high jewellery line under Richemont. A wildly success- ful first year is merely the beginning for the designer who considers himself, first and foremost, an artist. Bodino has been a prolific painter and sculptor for most of his life, but a mixture of shyness and reserve led him to hide his creations away in his studio. Only during the last few years did he begin to feel confident enough to reveal them to the world; once he did, he quickly realised that the combination of his personal and professional endeavours had granted him a rare ability – that of being both artist and designer. t’s always a privilege to witness a new star on the rise. Giampiero Bodino’s eponymous Maison was established in Milan in 2013, and had its first international appointment at the 2014 Paris Biennale des Antiquaires. The artist/designer relationship is a complex one, comprising two distinct roles that differ in their very nature, and are occasionally at direct odds with one another. The artist is driven by unlimited creative freedom. The designer, on the other hand, is constrained by objectives and functions, as well as the client’s expectations. Moreover, the artist has a highly personal relationship with his or her patron, who usually leaves room for the artist’s self-expression; the designer, meanwhile, interacts with everyone involved in a project, furthering a creative act that has been well defined by specific criteria. Thanks to years of experience, Bodino knows how to combine the artist’s creative freedom and the designer’s supervised freedom into a single inspired vision. It’s this vision that sets Bodino apart. His designs bristle with fresh ideas, each piece infused with personality. But while his work is unequivocally contemporary and his approach may defy conven- tion, Bodino draws inspiration from some fairly traditional sources. A proud Italian, he loves to explore his home country, soaking up its multi-faceted heritage. Everything, from the colour scheme of a church mosaic to the timeworn stone figures adorning a balcony in Sicily, serves as a source of creative motivation. A well-travelled and well-educated man, Bodino also finds inspira- tion by revisiting and studying historic cultural movements such as the Renaissance and the Baroque period. I 1 2 4 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I