In Dialogue with Earth: The Ceramics of Elena Milani

Elena Milani, born in 1981 in a small town at the foot of the Orobic Alps, lives and works in Chiavenna, a town in the province of Sondrio, Italy.

From a young age, she demonstrated a deep interest in the visual arts. She pursued this passion by enrolling in art schools, first attending an art high school and later graduating with honors in Scenography from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. After her studies, she completed a vocational training course in multimedia graphics and began working as a graphic designer.

Unsatisfied with the professional and social environment, which she found creatively limiting, she chose to become self-employed and work independently as a decorator and artist.

In 2018, she discovered ceramics—almost by chance—and it was love at first sight. From that moment, she decided to fully invest in her artistic career as a ceramist, studying under several prominent Italian ceramic artists to refine her techniques and deepen her understanding of ceramic materials.

Over the years, many figures have influenced her work, most notably Masaki Iwana, a renowned Japanese Butō dancer, whose philosophy and aesthetics profoundly impacted her artistic sensitivity, especially her appreciation for Eastern art. From Iwana, Elena absorbed a deep respect for the natural world, an affinity for essentialism, and a poetic embrace of emptiness as presence—what he called “the intensity of nothingness.”

Since 2003, Elena Milani has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, including solo exhibitions at the Ken Damy Museum in Brescia, the International Photography Festival in Quito, Ecuador, Officina Fotografica in Milan, and the Casa del Pellegrino in Civate (Lecco). One of her land art works was featured at EXPO Milano 2015.

More recently, she has taken part in major events such as the Cersaie International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings in Bologna, the Italian High-End Craftsmanship Salon at the Arsenale of Venice, and the Salone del Mobile in Milan. In 2025, she participated in Doppia Firma, a project by the Fondazione Cologni for artisanal excellence, during Fuorisalone.

One of her works is now permanently installed at the Giacometti Foundation in Bregaglia, Switzerland.

For Elena Milani, the act of creating begins in silence. Whether working or resting, she seeks moments of stillness, spaces that lead her back to the garden she’s shaped as her personal refuge. It’s there, among ever-changing yet timeless natural forms, that her artistic process takes root. Her ceramics are born from this attentive gaze: vessels shaped by biodiversity, curiosity, and a desire to feel part of something older and larger than human constructs.

Milani’s approach is one of subtraction. In this discipline, the material becomes the protagonist. Form, thickness, line, and texture balance precariously, and what is absent becomes as meaningful as what is present.

Among her most intimate collections is TERRE (2023), conceived during a severe drought. As her garden withered and trees died, Milani experienced firsthand the fragility of the ecosystem. The series speaks to that loss: vessels in dark clay, split before drying, whose halves deform and no longer fit together. Gaps form—bridged clumsily with steel staples in a symbolic, imperfect act of repair. Their surfaces, textured with crushed ceramic, recall the dry, vibrant skin of the earth. And yet, when filled with fresh flowers, these broken forms breathe with life again—just like a field in spring.

Through every piece, Elena Milani invites us into a quiet conversation: one between the human and the natural, the broken and the sacred, the visible and what lies just beneath.