William Versace

Formed in collaboration with the sea snails of Kamay, 'Sea Snail Trails (Winter)', 2025, immortalises the delicate paths traced across a pre-prepared mould during winter tides. By relinquishing authorship, the work allows the snails’ movements to determine its composition, foregrounding a quiet exchange where environment and organism shape the piece together.

William Versace’s scagliola tablets merge natural and artificial materials, incorporating pigments derived from sea life and ochres alongside seaweed-cast pewter forms. Made through a hand-sifting process rooted in his Calabrian heritage, the works resemble geological cross-sections – layered strata that hold traces of time and environment. Many pieces are created in collaboration with natural forces such as sea snails, rain, and salt, reflecting Versace’s ongoing interest in relinquishing control to place and process.

Grounded in painting, sculpture, and installation, Versace’s transdisciplinary practice engages deeply with material technologies, botany, and environmental processes. Working on-site with local ecologies, he allows natural elements to erode, form, or imprint his surfaces, prompting reflections on human impact, the dialogue between people and place, and speculations of what our future artefacts will look like.