Anna Porcu’s artistic journey begins in enchanting Tuscany, where the historical heritage and her antiquarian parents put her in close contact with a concept of beauty transcending temporal boundaries since she was a child. She received a Master’s Degree in Art History in Florence , and after a master in Cultural Marketing in Milan she did archival work in the Gucci archives and in Art at the Museum of Fashion Istitute of Technology in New York.
After a Europe-wide tour researching antique cameos, her first collection debuted in 2011. Enchanting Renaissance town of Pienza is her artistic headquarter. This pearl in the Orcia Valley in the midst of Tuscany is where everything begins. Anna works right inside her parents’ suggestive antiques shop. Her creations are then born and revealed in her world’s first storefront. More than a showroom, a gallery for all cameo lovers.
Her jewelry has been featured in several international magazines, and her creations have been selected for global contemporary jewelry events and trunk shows. Most recently, her pieces were chosen by the MAD Museum of New York and the Norton Museum of Palm Beach.
“I am an artist, with a historian’s heart; I deal with sculptures, but wearable ones; I travel the world, but I maintain my Tuscan identity, my incurably Italian soul, attached to family and old values. As a daughter of antiquarians, I grew up surrounded by curious objects and antiques. I first encountered art and all her magnificent forms when I was a child: dance, photography, drawing, craftsmanship”.
“My work is my mission. I bring to present artistic traditions with ancient origins dating back to Roman times: bas-relief is a precious practice to be preserved, a history to be handed down. I make it wearable to affirm its undisputed timelessness, through the unparalleled excellence of Made in Italy. I have traveled the world finding beautiful cameos to broadcast my message: art is a timeless treasure and a primitive human need, in every age. My research is both stylistic and historic: I investigate symbols, history, materials. Sometimes I keep cameos in their original frames, or I handset them in onyx, malachite or other hard stones. I often reimagine their shape, by making them octagonal, oval, rectangular, etc. or I mount them in ancient frames that belonged to other pieces, merging their paths. The adding of leather, gold, silver and precious stones coincides with a moment of rebirth: the past meets the present, the feminine dimension meets the masculine one, the cameo’s delicate essence is reinvigorated by the strength of another robust material. When I feel that a piece is ready, the next phase of its life begins: it leaves my laboratory and is passed on to its soulmate”.
“Each of my creations tell its future wearer three stories: one will speak a little about me, about my devotion to jewelry as art; another reveals the heritage of ancient goldsmiths and artisans; and the third unveils the secrets of the cameo’s character. I always choose stones that represent historical and mythological figures: artists, poets, inventors, divinities. Icons of humanity, moral qualities, and ethical values to identify with, each subject bears a message of beauty, love, courage and joy. Choosing one of my pieces means finding your own self immortalized on that stone, recognizing yourself in that carving, feeling the absolute protagonist of an ancient story echoing in the present. There is also a continuation of the story, of which the jewels are not emissaries, but tacit witnesses: that is, the story of the person who chooses them”.