Giampaolo Babetto

Bio

Giampaolo Babetto, born in Padua, Italy, in 1947, honed his craft at the Pietro Selvatico Art Institute in Padua and the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Since 1967, he has exhibited extensively across Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States. Notably, his creations grace the esteemed collection of the Pforzheim Museum. Presently, he resides and engages in his artistic endeavors in Arquà Petrarca (Padua).
Renowned as one of the most influential figures in the Avant-Garde goldsmiths' movement since the mid-1960s, Giampaolo Babetto stands as a distinguished veteran of the Padua School, profoundly shaping the landscape of art jewelry both in Italy and globally. Recognized as a versatile mixed media artist, he extends his creative talents beyond jewelry to encompass silver objects, furniture design, and architectural projects.
 

Statement

I identify myself with the jewellery I create. Every time it’s a new challenge, because I know that what I create must be a living object, not just something sitting in a window, and it has to appear even more beautiful when worn around a woman’s neck, her wrist or her fingers.
/Giampaolo Babetto

Giampaolo Babetto's artistic expression resonates with the essence of contemporary movements like concrete art, minimalism, kinetic art, and pop art, embodying a distinct, purist, and plastic aesthetic. His creations bear a hallmark simplicity that sets them apart instantly. Drawing inspiration from the architectural marvels of his native land, particularly Palladio's villas, Babetto finds poetic resonance in geometric forms. His jewelry stands at the forefront of innovation, featuring abstract elements, modular units, and ingenious linkages that imbue his pieces with a sense of architectural grandeur or sculptural finesse.

Babetto's preference for working with gold stems from its stable malleability and warm luster, which he masterfully combines with unconventional materials such as plastic, glass, and ebony. Delicately dusting the internal surfaces with velvet-like pigments in vibrant primary hues like reds and blues, or employing enamel and ancient niello-based techniques, he creates captivating contrasts and highlights. These materials serve to accentuate the increasingly pure and essential geometric forms that have become synonymous with the distinctive aesthetic of the Padua School.