marcantonio's instinct illumination series depicts creatures holding ripped chandeliers

italian sculptor and designer marcantonio raimondi malerba tells little intimate stories through his ‘instinct illumination’, a new series of lighting sculptures. the artist creates the handmade objects with traditional sculpture techniques adding an unexpected twist — classical chandeliers or their parts.

‘I imagined a dreamlike scene, a dreamy giraffe that goes for a walk with a chandelier in its mouth, as enchanted she illuminates the road that runs, has her head in the clouds because she is in love,’ marcantonio explains his giraffe holding a chandelier in its mouth. ‘she’s in love but she doesn’t know it yet because the giraffe has the heart far away from her head!’

titled ‘what a boar!’, the second piece is a bored boar who destroyed a brass chandelier and still squeezes the pieces between the teeth. ‘I wanted to add these antique chandeliers to my sculptures to make them more exclusive and special, both for the brass components value and for the difficulty of the sculpture process that must be entirely done by hand around the piece of the chandelier.’ the objects become even more magical because the artist uses different color and shape lamp bulbs. also, the lamps’ electric cables are left as if the animal had broken the piece recently, but the light is still on.

as marcantonio says, ‘before the beginning’ is the most conceptual and intimate work of the series: a child holding a small ‘maria teresa’ style chandelier in his hands, observing carefully the reflections and the game of the crystals as a scientist studies the changing matter, as an artist observes reality and transforms it. 

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: maria erman | designboom