Filippo Tincolini in his studio White Carrara marble Aracne head lying 2025
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your career?
The challenges? I talk to them every day. They’re those blocks that won’t give in, that marble that seems to say, “Not today.” They’re the no’s, the silences, the doors slammed in your face. It’s watching your hands wear down as you sculpt something the world may not yet be ready to see. The greatest challenge? Not becoming a manufacturer of objects, but staying a creative—even when everything around you asks you to be just a seller. I’ve learned to turn failure into material. My works were born also from the fear of not making it. And today, that fear is a fundamental part of my aesthetic. In my studio, every sculpture begins with surrender and ends in redemption.
Filippo Tincolini – Carrara Marble Quarry 2025
How did your passion for art begin?
It didn’t begin. It was always there—like the dust on the shoes of someone who walks a lot. As a child, I didn’t play with toys, I dismantled them to understand how they were made. I was fascinated by the “inside” of things. Then I met marble. And I understood: I wasn’t looking for a material, I was looking for a time. The time of stone, a slow, stubborn time where creation does not rush. Making art, for me, was like recognizing an ancient scent. It had always belonged to me—I just had to stop being afraid to chase it.
Filippo Tincolini in his studio clay model Tribute to Mitoraj 2025
What is your main source of inspiration?
Incongruity. The short circuit between the sacred and the profane, classical and pop, marble and plastic. I’m inspired by what shouldn’t go together, but still endures. A bust of Superman in the style of Dionysus. An astronaut from whose body flowers sprout. Where logic fails, art is born. I draw inspiration from strength disguised as fragility, from technology that wants to become religion, from consumerism turned archetype. I want my sculptures to be broken mirrors—where the viewer doesn’t find a truth, but a thousand possible reflections.
Filippo Tincolini in his studio Statuario Michelangelo Marble Flowered Venus Head 2025
What does art mean to you?
Art is the last religion that doesn’t promise salvation—but awareness. It’s a mirror that doesn’t flatter. A pagan altar where beauty blurs with doubt. For me, art is a way to hold on to time, as if every chisel stroke were a second stolen from oblivion. It’s an act of resistance. A form of silent rebellion. Art is what remains when words have stopped working.
Portrait Filippo Tincolini – ph Laura Veschi