Team Art Studio _ Marica Montemurro & Giovanni Papapietro

Team Art Studio is a collective formed by illustrators Giovanni Papapietro and Marìca Montemurro, active since 2017 and based in Matera (Italy). Our projects, from wall paintings to arts and crafts and design items, are born from illustration and focusing on the communicative power of images. Since 2021 our ideas have a base of operations, a place to create and transform by generating art. Located in one of the most central streets of the City of the Sassi, Team Art Studio is a workshop, a shop and a space where through specific courses it is possible to learn manual and creative techniques. From ceramic artifacts, to illustrated works, to the most extravagant commissions: our items are designed and made making sure that each one has a story to tell and represents a unique and original piece of artistic craftsmanship.

Q&A

What craft do you work with? 

We work mainly as illustrators and graphic designers. Our path starts as muralists in 2016 and has become over the years a combination of design and making in which we combine drawing with clay modeling and making artistic works by exploiting various materials.
In our studio you can discover and purchase our creations but also attend our courses and workshops to understand and experience the manual techniques of artistic craftsmanship.

What inspires you to work with this craft? 

We chose to do this work. Art and passion go hand in hand, one cannot be there if the other is not at the base.
Our research is based on combinations and balances between form and color. Being a designer excites us every day and gives us the opportunity to use images as a universal language that unites and cancels distances.

How do you start your creative process?

Each project is born from an idea that we try not to get too attached to. The idea is prototyped and, at this stage, we choose whether to pursue it or abandon it to focus on something else. Not every idea is a winner. Once the artifact (illustration, graphic, sculpture…) has been prototyped, we move on to analyzing the materials and defining what its color index will be.
At the end of this process, which can sometimes take weeks, we move on to the creative phase of realization, the most fun. Here idea and prototype are the fundamental guide that allow to arrive at the finished work. this is how furniture complements, numbered design sculptures, but also cultural activities and projects aimed at different targets are born.

How would you best describe your workspace and what tools could you not do without?

Our studio is a comfortable space in the style of Northern European ateliers.
With 90 square meters of open space and 20 of loft space.
Team Art Studio presents three levels of communication: the shop, the living and the lab.
The three realities are communicating with each other and divided by furniture/shelves designed and engineered by ourselves and custom-made for the space by a craftsman.
If necessary, we can expand the lab space by rotating a shelf; this area is the most important . The lab is our creative place, here are all the tools we need to create and model, as well as being the space where we hold classes, workshops, picture book presentations and meetings between artists and creative people.

Are there new techniques you would like to try?

We would like to experiment by placing goldsmithing and metalworking techniques alongside illustration and ceramics.

What have you learnt or the best advice you have received that you would like to share with fellow crafters?

We strongly believe that you do not need a specific title to classify yourself as a “designer.” The basis of artistic research is winning thoughts and ideas, lots of ideas; to these two factors should be added the development of manual skills.

What other types of craft do you dream of collaborating with?

In the future we hope to expand our network into the world of public art projects and be able to have a more European scope. We would also like to combine our techniques with the components of metals and wood, working alongside designers who are experts in these fields.

What professional dream do you have?

Being able to bring up our brand to make it recognizable on a marketing level and turn our method into an art education format.

Media & Contact

Representation

Team Art Studio

 

Contact

Email: team.art.ita@gmail.com

 

References

Website:  teamartstudio.it

Instagram:  Team Art

Facebook: Team Art Gallery

Etsy: Team Art Studio

 

Photography credit

Nicla Pisciotta

Location

Matera, Italia

Material Library entries

These are Materials that were discovered and crafted by the Craft person behind this profile