With Voyage en Sicile, Ivan Baj walks the somewhat perilous path of the whimsical, sustained by the typically Muranese ability to hot-model glass. A step too far and exuberance exudes excess. Yet, this doesn’t happen. The collection’s alien organisms and abstract fantasies bear the mark of the Caltagirone ceramics that inspired them. However, Baj breaks from the rigour of design providing a personal interpretation of Sicilian earthenware distancing tradition from folklore. Rosa Barovier Mentasti

Ivan Baj (Italy, 1957) is a glass-artist who trained as a ceramicist at Rosenthal and Ginori in the Seventies. He then turned to Murano glass encouraged by his friendship with Anna Venini and Laura de Santillana. Baj is the founder and creative director of the brand Arcade since 1989. Emerging from Ivan’s journeys and encounters with places and people are unique pieces, entirely hand shaped and mouth blown in Murano by master Andrea Zilio.