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Ornella was born in Venice, the youngest of six children, with five brothers. Although drawn to art, Ornella’s father drove her to study law, but she took time to appreciate art throughout the City. Ornella regularly visited the Basilica of St. Marco with its mosaic floors and Byzantium columns covered in mosaic glass. Venice was and remains a major center of fine glass works, and Ornella was drawn to the medium from her early years. She was fascinated by the early maritime art of the Venetian Republic, which was influenced greatly by the styles and colors of the Orient, and the early mosaic works from Ottoman times. Ornella spent every summer with her family in a small fisherman village in the South of Italy. There, she developed a profound connection with nature and in particular, with the sea. The landscapes and seascapes of Italy’s South deeply inspired Ornella’s artistic soul.
Ornella arrived in New York after a stint in London and immersed herself into the thriving New York art scene of the mid-1980’s. Once in Manhattan, Ornella’s community was composed of artists, musicians and photographers. As she took time to find herself in a new country and culture, Ornella observed her own artistic tendency to visualize in mosaic.
“Instinctively, I came to see the world through a mosaic lens. Whether a landscape or an object, I can immediately see the colors, shapes and sizes which would represent it in abstract mosaic form.” Ornella’s initial mosaic pieces were her contribution to the Manhattan art scene but by the late 1980’s, her vision for Ercole, as a company which produces “living art for the home” came into clearer focus.
Ornella lives in Manhattan with her family. |
