When Art Becomes Form

Vitamia / When Art Becomes Form

“Quality is not an aesthetic, but a responsibility.”

Merigo Gennj is the Italian footwear and handbag brand of designer Gennj Merigo, entirely Made in Italy.

I grew up in a home where details mattered.

For several years, my parents made handcrafted shoes to order, working directly from home. I was too young to remember watching them during that period, but what they passed on to me goes far beyond that craft.

They are both deeply creative people, attentive to quality and to the harmony of things. From clothing to objects in our home, everything was chosen, created or personalised with sensitivity and care. There was a natural pursuit of beauty, a particular attention to detail and to things made well.

I grew up surrounded by materials, details, balance and a love of beautiful things. It is something I absorbed over time and still recognise today in the way I create and design.

That is where I learned that quality is not an aesthetic, but a responsibility.

Perhaps that is where my way of observing the world first began.

My work today moves between art and design. I design bags and shoes, seeking a balance between form, material, quality and the way an object is lived, while at the same time I paint works that inhabit my home like inner traces. They are two different languages, but both come from the same need to give form to something that initially exists only in my imagination.

I love drawing in pencil for the purity of the line, for that first moment when everything is still possible. At the same time, I feel the need to work with matter, to build surfaces and create relief with my hands.

In my paintings, as in my objects, I always look for a tactile dimension. Some details are not simply meant to be seen, but to be perceived.

In one of the paintings I created for my home, I imagined an elephant moving through the cosmos. I first drew the figure, then worked on the surface to create relief. I used water and colour, allowing them to flow, meet and partly find their own direction. By moving the water across the surface, I tried to recreate something undefined and constantly changing, like the space I had imagined.

Perhaps it is precisely this gesture of letting go that returns, in a different way, when I draw. For me, water is not only a material to work with: it is movement, light and reflection. It is the same sensation I find on Lake Garda at the end of the day, when the sun lowers and the surface of the water continuously changes with the light.

I believe art is not only something to observe, but something to feel.

There is a precise moment when an idea stops being imagined and begins to become real.

In the sketch of the burgundy bag, I imagined a woman at exactly that time of day. She is walking home with the lake beside her, while the last reflections of the sun move across the water. Her walk is confident yet relaxed, without a constructed pose, and for a few moments she seems to slow down and give herself one more breath. It is a small space of peace at the end of the day, a moment that belongs only to her, in which even what surrounds her can become a source of inspiration.

It is for that woman that I imagine the bag. I want its quality to be perceived before it even needs to be explained: in the leather, in the sensation of touch, in the construction, the volumes and the details. A bag does not need to be extravagant to have character. When the material is beautiful and the quality is authentic, you can see it and feel it.

For me, this is also what it means to feel at ease in what you wear. The bag should not overpower the person, but accompany her and give her confidence. It becomes a natural part of her clothing, her movement and the way she experiences that moment.

It can have a strong presence without demanding attention at all costs: through quality, balanced forms and the tactile pleasure of the material.

Then comes the material: Italian leather chosen not only for its softness, but for what it communicates through touch, for the way it supports the form and for its ability to endure and change over time.

Volumes and relief also become part of the design. I do not think of them simply as decoration applied to a surface, but as elements capable of giving depth to the form, catching the light differently and making the object recognisable through touch as well.