Sparks, flaming lines, iridescent flashes, multicolored streamers, iridescent dust and flashes of light... all that's missing is the noise of an explosion, and we could imagine we were in the middle of a fireworks display.

Instead, we present Michele Burato's “fire paintings”, the result of his artistic research in glass.

A selection of about thirty works (covering a production of several decades), which, like fireworks, sparkling on the reflection of the lagoon waters, multiply the amazement of those who look at them.

Michele Burato began his exploration of glass towards the end of the eighties. He started by creating flat compositions, first made with fragments of old murrine, then also with self-produced murrine, and subsequently fused in polychrome plates using small electric ovens. However, the cane murrina limited creative freedom, imposing a schematic compositional grid and abrupt chromatic breaks.

After a few years, then, still working independently in her studio, she began to combine on a monochromatic slab, used as a canvas, glass components never used before in Murano.  She introduced the use of glass filler, to be spread with a spatula as if it were paint; a very fine glass powder, with the consistency of talcum powder, which he distributes on the slab using a brush or powder puff to create particular shades, and then irregular fragments, threads and bands of color, so as to obtain abstract compositions, of great originality and expressive freedom.

The desire to paint with glass, freeing himself from traditional Murano techniques and colors, led him to discover Bullseye glass. A semi-finished American glass, produced in colors totally new to the Murano tradition, including the dichroic variant with iridescent effects, due to inclusions of micro-layers of metal oxides. Burato is a pioneer in the use of this new type of glass, typically used in the United States for glass fusing, but which he instead works with, combining it with the roll-up and blowing techniques.

Many of the two-dimensional works thus acquire a sculptural dimension. The plates are taken to a furnace in Murano to be heated and shaped by the master glassmaker, with a blowpipe, so that they take on the form of the vase/container, which becomes a support to give material consistency and visibility to emotions, to expressive research, and to chromatic composition.

In some cases they are familiar forms, elegant volumes, harmonious colors, in others, shapeless, organic agglomerations, pulsating masses of matter and color. In his works he alchemically combines formal minimalism with maximalist colorism. The same oxymoronic relationship characterizes his work: on one hand, the maniacal accuracy in the combination of murrine fragments, on the other, the violent and free gesture of the pigment thrown on the glassy surface.

When you look at his works, your gaze is drawn into the depths of the material. A disorienting vortex of sparkles, iridescence and colors induces a sort of optical overexcitation, transforming the sculptural solidity into a changing vibration, an ephemeral, enchanting and temporary presence, just like fireworks.