Floating Water Stones
Floating Water Stones
Floating Water Stones are sculpted paintings shaped like stones: folded black and white canvases touched with hints of gold, finished in resin so that they float. They stand as a sculpture and set on water, they float and drift.
The Black
Installation — Black water, floating folded canvases
Inspired by Tiwu Ata Mbupu, the sacred volcanic lake of Kelimutu in Flores, Indonesia, The Black explores the threshold between the material and the immaterial, where transformation becomes a metaphor for the passage of existence.
Known as the Lake of Old People, Tiwu Ata Mbupu is believed by the local Lio people to be the resting place of ancestral spirits who lived just and virtuous lives. Its waters, which periodically shift from blue and green to deep black, reveal the invisible forces at work beneath the Earth’s surface.
In The Black, a circular basin of dark, reflective water becomes a space of suspension. Folded canvases, transformed into sculptural forms resembling stones, float upon its surface. Neither entirely solid nor weightless, they inhabit an ambiguous state between permanence and dissolution.
The folds preserve the traces of gestures, time, and transformation, while the black water conceals its own depth, reflecting the visible world yet withholding what lies beneath.
Drawing upon the ancestral symbolism of Kelimutu, the installation contemplates the continuity of existence beyond its physical form, inviting reflection on memory, mortality, and the invisible dimensions of being.
The black surface becomes both a mirror and a threshold—a place where matter appears to rest, yet nothing remains entirely still.
Plan and elevation for re-creating the installation: a circular basin of black water, Ø 200 cm, 10 cm high. Stone sizes and positions are indicative.
Shown at
Flow Through the Colors, Rubinetterie Stella, Fonderia Napoleonica Eugenia, Milan Design Week, 2024
Yes, But…, Milano Art Week, Viale Sarca 183, 2026