Who has not looked out to sea, awash with a feeling of being one with that infinite expanse of blue*? There's no denying the interplay between eye and water: a game of mirrors conducive to reverie. This autumn, Antoine Pierini celebrates the evocative power of the Mediterranean. In the wake of his outstanding showcase at Villa Kérylos in summer 2022, the master glassmaker, designer and glass artist brings Mer Intérieure to the former oil mill in Biot. Waves embody variations of colour and light, a tribute to the living world and the poetry of the elements; a floating landscape flanked by Arbres Repères, redolent of the Mediterranean cypress. Here, the breakers echo the stirrings of the soul… In carving the sea into a stretch of coast, Antoine Pierini seems intent on preserving a symbolic retinal memory. He uses the materials to confront visitors with their own reflection, like Narcissus at the water's edge. More than an exhibition, this is both a sensorial and spiritual journey.   

*The "ocean feeling" described by Romain Rolland in a letter to Sigmund Freud. 

"Man, no one has sounded the depths of your soul;   
O Sea, no one knows what treasures you hold"  
Charles Baudelaire, Man and the Sea, 
from the anthology The Flowers of Evil 

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