According to Renaissance humanist, artist, and architect Leon Battista Alberti, decoration is a means to beautify the architecture that houses it.
That’s Giliana Gavioli’s philosophy as well: decorating the walls of a room brings them alive, gives them a soul, it infuses them with deeper meaning, making them unique and more valuable.As a mural art master, Giliana designs the flat spaces of walls and ceilings, gifting them with dimensions, colour, and meaning. As a restorator, she returns the past to its true appearance, not invading it but rediscovering it.
But Giliana Gavioli is also a creative and innovative entrepreneur, who has perfectly blended modernity and technology in the processes, while never hindering or penalising the artistic and unique aspects of the final outcomes. And through her work and the support of her talented team in the Studio Gavioli atelier in Modena, Italy, she continuously provides clients with a perfectly balanced combination of artistry, artisanship, and professionalism, for breathtaking results.
Art, Design, and Technology
Giliana Gavioli’s background is drenched in art and in history, as is for most Italians, but, unlike the majority, there’s also a family tradition at play: her father was an appreciated painter and decorator and Giliana grew up surrounded by colours, brushes and a keen sense of aesthetics.
Giliana’s artistic path was shaped by formal training at local specialised schools and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna and honed by many specialisation courses and an almost 30-years long practice. Since 2011, Giliana serves as a professor of “methodology and techniques of frescos” at her Alma Mater, in Bologna.
Along with her work as a restaurateur, which includes many projects both for scientific and conservative restorations for both private residences and public structures – often developed under the strict surveillance of the relative “Soprintendenza” (Italian Offices for the conservation of the artistic and historic heritage) – Giliana has, over the course of her career, designed and decorated prestigious private residences both in Italy and throughout the world.
In the HORECA context, amongst other projects, she has provided her skillful mastery in the decoration of Thornbury a Tudor castle in Gloucestershire, near Bristol, in England, which has been restored in 2019 to become a château relais, and of Palazzo Parigi, the most magnificent 5 star hotel in Milan city centre.
Obviously, both the project and the execution of these works are carefully planned out, to harmonically adhere to the historical architecture and to meet the golden intersection of the clients’ desires, the technical limitations, and the harmonious effect of the final result. To overcome some of the technical limitations, Giliana Gavioli has put her creativity at work in developing technological innovations that were trademarked and are now the basis to ensure the highest artisanship standards.
Through this technology, the need to work directly on the walls to be decorated (one of the main difficulties in traditional mural decoration) can be successfully overcome, without compromising in any way the artistic integrity, the quality, and the value of the finished project.
Giliana has recently developed a further application of her trademarked technology to offer a collection specifically dedicated to HORECA clients looking for a sustainable way to implement valuable, artistic, and handmade decorations to their premises.
[note: this article was featured on HORECA Magazine in January 2025]