Gian Domenico Facchina Award

21/01/2025

Gian Domenico Facchina Award

From the Municipality of Sequals recognition to two students of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli.

The Gian Domenico Facchina Award was awarded in the Aula Magna of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli of the end of the year.

For the technical precision and interpretative care of their mosaic, the Gian Domenico Facchina Award (a.f. 2023/2024) was awarded to the students Chiara De Stefano and Spyridon Votsis. Both were confronted with a panel signed by the botanist and painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) known for his ability, animated by a scientific eye, to depict and describe, with the brush, plants and flowers. In this case, it is the image of three cut tulips, one yellow, one red and one speckled, with slightly different corollas, and long leaves that enclose the simple bouquet.

To the students of the first course, a.f. 2023/2024, they were asked to interpret the table of tulips as a mosaic using the Roman technique, a specific topic of the first training year at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli. The compositional activity was preceded by the study and drawing of the patterns, on which to then set the arrangement of the tiles, and the selection of the different materials, all natural, to recreate those volumes, given in the original by the watercolor painting, to be rendered in mosaic, through combinations and contrasts of colours.

Chiara De Stefano and Spyridon Votsis were able to best resolve these two moments, creating two elegant and flawless mosaic works, which allowed them to stand out.

Maximum satisfaction was expressed by the president of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, Stefano Lovison, and by the mayor of Sequals, Enrico Odorico, who did not fail to underline the significance of this award for the community of Sequals: an award in memory of the mosaicist and great entrepreneur Gian Domenico Facchina and the many men who like him left their hometown to seek their fortune and with tenacity and commitment were able to establish themselves. A story that unites and binds many families in western Friuli, for whom the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli represented the place of training, growth and professional start-up of young people who then left for the world. For this reason, for Mayor Odorico, the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli is a living and active part of our cultural heritage, as is remembered by the two winning mosaics which, as usual, will be on display for a year in the atrium of the Sequals Town Hall.

Understandably excited, the students Chiara De Stefano and Spyridon Votsis wanted to thank the Municipality of Sequals for the opportunity offered with the Gian Domenico Facchina Award and dedicate a thought of gratitude to the mosaic teachers, Francesco Anchora, Jonas Paul Giubbini and Elena Pauletto, capable not only of transmitting technical notions and passion for art, but also of creating a fruitful climate of participation and involvement where relationships and human experience also have equal value of the skills to acquire to be a good Mosaic Master.