Rosanna Ceravolo
(b. 1983, Melbourne. Lives and works in Melbourne)

Rosanna Ceravolo’s multidisciplinary practice spans architecture, interior, furniture and object design. Her products experiment with form, composition, materiality and texture, often using singular materials to create visually arresting, evocative and engaging pieces. Ceravolo sees her product designs as natural extensions of her architectural work, which is underpinned by a desire to elevate and enrich everyday human experiences.

Designed in 2020 and produced in 2021, Entropy was first exhibited as part ofSelf Portrait, a group show curated by Friends & Associates for Melbourne Design Week in 2022. Entropy reflects the designer’s state of being during its creation, a time of personal and collective turbulence in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ceravolo asks if disorder and chaos are always accelerating, exploring the inevitability of energy dispersing, decaying and disaggregating. ‘We are a momentary by-product of the laws of physics,’ she explains. ‘Time is not linear and yet we experience it as thus because of what it takes away from us, from the seemingly trivial to the existential.’

Like many of Ceravolo’s products, Entropy resists easy categorisation, taking a playful approach to function and semiotics. Created from raw cast aluminium, the intricate work reconfigures molecular structures into a surreal sequence of interconnecting parts, incorporating architectural shapes that gesture toward the designer’s own identity. Entropy’s use of negative space hints at loss, heartbreak and failure, but the complex structure is ultimately held together by repeating and entangled forms. Ceravolo sees it as a compressed timeline, showing the beauty and texture of shared human experiences.

Since establishing her own studio in 2011, Ceravolo has exhibited locally and internationally, recently appearing at Melbourne Design Week (2022, 2021) and Salone del Mobile in Milan (2019). Her work was highly commended in the Interior Design category at the Design Files + Laminex Design Awards (2021) and commended in the Residential Interior category in the Dulux Colour Awards (2021). Ceravolo’s architectural, interior and product designs have been featured in various publications, including Elle Décor Italia, Vogue Living, The Age, The Sydney MorningHerald, Habitus Living, Monument, Design Quarterly, Australian Design Review and Australian House and Garden. She holds a Masters of Architecture from the University of Melbourne (2008).