With It’s All a Big Mystery, Swiss artist Carmen D’Apollonio presents a new body of work that unfolds at the intersection of sculpture and design. Her practice resists fixed categorization, instead developing through an intuitive engagement with material, form, and process. The resulting works occupy a space that is at once functional and sculptural, precise and deliberately unresolved.

At the center of the exhibition are hand-built ceramic pieces defined by their immediacy and strong material presence. D’Apollonio works without rigid preconceptions; forms evolve organically, retaining the marks of their making. Irregular contours, shifting proportions, and subtle instabilities are integral to the work, emphasizing a vocabulary that privileges spontaneity and expression over refinement.A key aspect of her practice lies in transformation through variation. As D’Apollonio notes, even slight modifications—such as exchanging a glass shade for porcelain—can fundamentally alter the character of an object. The same structural base can give rise to distinct identities, each work carrying its own narrative potential. In this sense, her objects remain open-ended: they do not prescribe meaning but invite projection, allowing multiple readings to coexist.

Many of the works suggest an anthropomorphic presence. Lamps take on bodily qualities, appearing as figures with posture and attitude. This impression is reinforced by a subtle sensuality: forms seem soft, almost yielding, as though resting, reclining, or momentarily paused. Even in more dynamic compositions, a sense of calm persists, introducing a temporal dimension that feels slowed and suspended. Humor is an equally important component of the work. Rather than operating as overt commentary, it emerges through understated formal shifts – elements that hang, tilt, or extend in ways that gently destabilize expectation. This quiet playfulness is embedded in the material language itself, lending the works an immediacy that oscillates between familiarity and estrangement.

Light functions not merely as a practical element but as a conceptual and atmospheric one. Moving beyond the traditional notion of the lamp, D’Apollonio creates hybrid objects in which material and luminosity merge into sculptural entities. In many cases, the emitted light is minimal, diffused, and ambient – less about illumination than about presence. It extends softly into the surrounding space, activating both object and environment, and suggesting a poetic dimension that exceeds utility. Surface and color further articulate this dynamic. Glazes are applied intuitively, at times emphasizing form, at times counteracting it. The interplay between raw and polished finishes enhances the tactile quality of the works, reinforcing their physical and spatial immediacy.