Hotel Atelier sul Mare is a hotel in Sicily, Italy. Quite unique, it is just a few metres from the beautiful sea at Cefalu, with silence, beautiful sunsets and a wonderful setting surrounded by fine artworks.
The owners have revolutionised the traditional function of a hotel room, creating a new dimension, ‘the dream of art’, where the room itself becomes a work of art. The artist puts his/her work at the guest's disposal, in order to awaken his/her emotions and meditations. Only after entering and living in a room, will the work of art be fulfilled. Your presence and use of the room is a vital, essential element.
In Camera Energia, artist Maurizio Mochetti carries out a research on light. The ordinary white light lets Mochetti's work appear quite normal. The red furniture is intentionally over-dimensioned, the large wardrobe is no longer a clothes container, but space itself. After viewing those strange forms and pieces of furniture, the red light is switched on and the space undergoes a radical transformation.
Linea d'Ombra is a room reinvented by Michele Canzoneri, the artist who created the glass windows of Cefalù cathedral. The bed is installed on a large wooden raft, while the floor is made up of blue ceramic stripes, evoking the sea. The coup de theatre is a bath-tub excavated in the terrace and almost floating on the sea. As light changes, you watch the ever-changing colours of the sea and keep feeling, meditating, understanding. For four weeks Paolo Icaro lived here as a regular guest, right in the room he was supposed to re-shape, awaiting inspiration. ‘Little by little, the walls of my imagination began to open up, thought became homogeneous and visualised as a single object: it was not placed like a mushroom, but a subject-object. I thought of a nest…’ A sculpture originated from that train of thoughts: it can be enjoyed not only with eyes, but with the whole body: by day, at night, alone, with a partner. A sculpture awakening curiosity, interest, meditations, thoughts.
In Trinacria the artist creates a very narrow entry, by letting a door revolve on a hinge. The door is inspired by Sicily's triangle form, the room's basic colours are black and red, that is, the sun and the volcanoes, dominating the isle’s landscape and affecting the inhabitants' thoughts. An imposing red triangle stands on one of the three vertices of the white triangular bed. The walls are made from plaster containing Etna's lava: such stone symbolically represents the mighty fire of the volcano from which Sicily was born.
Sogni tra segni work is a tribute to ideological utopia. The idea was conceived by Renato Curcio and Agostino Ferrari. It symbolises isolation, which can be overcome only by art and its irrepressible urge of freedom. Ferrari created the great web over the bed, while the bath is brickwork, resembling a cave, a pure, primordial place the artist firmly believes in.
Su barca di carta mi imbarco was created by Maria Lai, the great Sardinian artist, who invented this space while attempting to convey the emotions of the travellers visiting Sicily and Sardinia – the two largest Mediterranean islands. This work of art draws inspiration from the bath, a place full of water and energy. The guest finds themself under a roof (a waterfall) dipped in an iconographic journey of fishes and marine colours. Then, they emerge from water and in the room finds the black and the blue, that – together with the sea and the wind – are the dominating colours and elements in Sicily and Sardinia. The imaginary constellations are represented by the large bed cover and the brass wires crossing the room. This great tangle shows us how emotions and astonishment may originate from chaos. The silence of both islands is contained in the force of a split stone placed before the bed.
In Torre di Sigismondo you are offered the opportunity of being in the sea while watching the sky. The room is a huge empty black cylinder with a round bed in the middle revolving around itself .The roof is opened by means of special handles and the miracle of art appears: stars revolve all around, and from this oppressed prison you are offered the opportunity to be free. In Bocca della verita, Ceroli's work is represented by sculptures/furniture. The main element is the large bed, a ‘truth mouth’. The room has a big wardrobe which does not conceal anything. Instead, in its being alpha and omega, it represents the alternation of seasons, the beginning and the end.
In La stanza della terra e del fuoco, two elements are instrumental: terracotta and fire. The walls are entirely covered by terracotta fragments, creating a strongly evocative atmosphere. In the middle of the room, the large bed causes a moment of great suspense. The sculptural element is represented by the big iron chair, which is deprived of its traditional function and communicates the freedom of knowledge, thought. In its torsion, the chair becomes a minute sign and almost magically touches the exploded terracotta wall. While sitting and experiencing that emptiness, that subtraction, that transition from particular to general, the guest is set free and discovers his belonging to space.
