Studio Massai
Photography
Stefano Massai, a photographer since 1978, has worked in Europe, the United States and Asia. His work has been shown in Europe and has been published in design magazines internationally. His clients include Gap, Hugo Boss, Arc Linea, Esprit, Panasonic, Grand Hyatt Tokyo, Felissimo, Pottery barn, Design Within Reach and many others.
Stefano has the kind of global reputation that comes from the prestige of commercial success, but like many Bardessono artisans, the success has not jettisoned his artistic devotion nor the humble journey of mastering a craft. When asked about his artistic body of work, built upon the last twenty years, he comments how "an artwork may simultaneously contain elements of emptiness and fullness, matter and void." A statement that while poetic and cryptic to some, is perfectly suited to Stefano’s photographic assignment for the Bardessono guestrooms.
Commissioned to take black and white images for each of the guestrooms, the assignment involved photographing specific olive trees on an orchard in Sonoma, California. The resulting shots of the trees now hanging on the walls, have a mysterious beauty and help achieve the sensations of warmth, peace and silence hoped for in the rooms. Unarguably the sophisticated alternative to the often insipid art hanging in hotels, the concept, says Stefano, "was to bring the essence and splendor of the landscape outside the hotel, into the rooms. Not in descriptive terms, but rather as a representation of the feeling that exists on the land."
Knowing something about that “feeling” and understanding how to translate it into his artwork, and into the emotional textures of the Bardessono design, is Stefano’s gift to the hotel.
