Silvia Finiels awaits us in her atelier in the area of San Samuele in Venice, only a few steps away from Palazzo Grassi. Outside, the crowded atmosphere of an ordinary Saturday afternoon in the Carnival period. Inside, her super refined Murano glass lamps ‐ arranged on glass tables – seem they are just waiting for us. 

Credits Veronica Croce – Courtesy Aventurina Design

Silvia is a French artist from Lyon, the city where she studied stylisme and textile printing. After having worked many years in the field of fashion for Biagiotti and Mugler (“definitely not easy for me at the time”, she tells us, “I was young, still searching for my real ‘me’ and my personal form of creativity”), she started collaborating with Opéra Comique in Paris as a costume designer.

Some years later, thanks to the encounter with the Venetian painter Giorgio Mion, she decided to settle in the Venice lagoon where she approached glass for the first time. “Giorgio showed me some nineteenth‐ century Venetian beads that he had wrapped in a newspaper clipping. I found them beautiful, incredibly bright and contemporary. We used to create jewels which were really unique pieces made out of original antique beads. We used to sell them in our cozy gallery close to San Zaccaria. At the time we even brought our collections to NY”.

Credits Veronica Croce – Courtesy The Edge Magazine

Since 2007 glass has turned out to be Silvia’s favourite material in terms of artistic research. Eight years ago her brand Aventurina Design arose from the idea of creating vintage lamps with glasses recovered in glasshouses and retailers. These pieces often stem from great Murano glass masters of 1900s that Silvia selects, cleans and perfects to give them new life. “It feels like they call me”, Silvia reveals. “My collections of lamps are due to a combination of single forms and volumes, colours and shades of light which characterize every single glass piece”. Silvia’s creations are authentic sculpture lamps with feminine and sophisticated profiles that over the years have been exhibited in prestigious occasions such as the Design Weeks in Venice and Milan, at the Museo del Vetro in Murano and in Paris (the last show at the Galleria Atelier Visconti).

The most renowned views of her works include Venice in the background, Saint Mark’s square, Caffè Florian and the interior of some eighteenth‐century Venetian buildings where Silvia’s lamps literally “strike a pose” within a beautifully harmonic painting.

Credits Veronica Croce – Courtesy Aventurina Design

Replying to one of our questions related to the future of Murano – considering that Covid‐19 and the recent increase in energy price have even intensified the current crisis – Silvia has no doubt indeed: “Those who are able to give new energy, new ideas and new forms to this ancient material… Well, these people will stand out for sure. In short, only Quality will make Murano rise again”.