From Silence to Form: the Elemental Sculptures of Thomas Pucci
In his sculptural practice, Italian artist Thomas Pucci explores the moment where form is born - where pressure, matter and inner force find their way to the surface.
Working with materials such as ceramic, bronze, wood, resin, glass and gold, Pucci treats each medium as a living presence - one that mirrors the tension between soul and body, containment and release.
His animals, often partially hidden within shells or enclosed volumes, exist at a threshold: between silence and movement, protection and exposure, inner world and outer reality.
ArtDependence (AD): What are your favorite materials to work with and why ?
Thomas Pucci (TP): My work focuses on archetypes from mythology and from the natural world that, through an elemental combination of earth, water, air, and fire, find an opening, a crack, a birth, and a movement coming from the inside towards the outside.
This work is allowed through a transformation of the materials that I use. Ceramic, bronze, resin, wood, gold, and glass: each material possesses its own energy, structure, and behavior under pressure, which is an analogy for the soul and the body. Every material must be approached with respect and balance, allowing integrity whilst undergoing the request to be shaped into a new idea and form.
As I reflect on the process of birth, opening, the material too is undergoing transformation. The plasticity of the material is an analogy for the cyclicality of life and death that I am reflecting on. The material process is therefore a reflection of its subject - ceramic is clay: made from earth and water, bronze and ceramic are both borne from fire, and air is the ether that moves the spirit through the work. The process and the conceptuality are mirrors.
Thomas Pucci, Ram with the Golden Fleece. Raku ceramic, polychrome bronze and brass metal, glass, wax gold. 2025 Size: 46 x 38 x 46 cm
AD: Your work depicts animals, cows, turtles, crocodiles. How do you decide what animals you want to present in your work ?
TP: My research on animals arises from an instinctive and primordial bond, a deep memory that I believe belongs to every human being. It is a silent connection with the natural world and, at the same time, with our most intimate inner self.
The animals I choose—bulls, rams, sharks, crocodiles—are archetypal presences, expressions and culminations of the primary elements: water, earth, and air. They move and live in perfect harmony with their environment, and my work seeks to capture this original balance, whether it reveals itself in the stillness of a swamp, the vastness of the ocean, or in the dust drifting across the plain.
As stated before, my work is strongly centered around the idea of birth and emergence, and so I closely study what that unique process looks and, most importantly, feels like.
AD: There are almost always shells around the work, you only see the faces of the animals, the rest of the body is under a shell. Can you explain the why ?
TP: The shell is a space of protection and silence, a place where energy gathers before movement. The same can be said about the womb, where the animal is enclosed before it must emerge into an outer dimension.
In my sculptures, the dialogue between the two worlds is constant: the body remains contained, while the being presses outward, searching for a path, a possibility of opening. The head emerges as a threshold, as the first point of contact with the world. It is there that inner pressure and force becomes visible, where the vital impulse begins the process of unfolding from an origin that remains a mystery.
The eggs and spheres that I once sculpted have metamorphosed to become abstract volumes that embody the universality that envelops and controls us - a metaphor for the energy that protects and demands our existence. This is the nature of Birth, and in turn, whatever controls it, a power that is unforgiving and welcoming, that exacts both fear and faith.
Thomas Pucci's work will be part of the exhibition Common Ground in Kortrijk, on view from January 29 until March 15.
Locations: Groeningestraat 26, Kortrijk
Koning Leopold I Straat 26, Kortrijk
For further information on the works contact info@larrygallery.com
Main Image: Thomas Pucci, Sitting Bull, Raku ceramic, bronze, glass 2024. Size 26 x 32 x 28 cm.
All images Copyright : Riccardo Benassi