Holocene

Matteo Nangeroni

Matteo Nangeroni, the internationally renowned tattooist from Padua, began his artistic journey in 2014, founding The White Whale Tattoo Society in 2018.
"I love combining realistic images with impossible settings. But I also merge different styles: sometimes my tattoos seem like collaborations between different versions of me."

The jewel

“The North, the "frozen planet" documentaries with orcas, penguins and whales have always been a part of my life. The whale as a recurring subject from my past and my veneration of it probably stems from here. I began my journey in 2014 and opened my studio, "The White Whale Tattoo Society", in 2018, subconsciously carrying with me the shows I used to watch as a child and fusing this element with a contemporary graphic approach and surrealism to develop my signature style. Holocene is an experience that captures the possibility of letting the mind take you somewhere different, the freedom to create a piece of jewellery for the first time, moving from a 2D drawing to a 3D pendant – the collaboration with Nove25 has made it possible to transform a vision into something wearable, unique."

HOLOCENE

Sterling Silver with 18k gold plating
Height 4cm, Curb chain (060) lenght 60 cm

The Holocene is the most recent geological epoch, marked by the decay of the carbon-14 radioactive isotope. It therefore marks the modern age, which produced and climatically supported the first human settlements and the exponential development of marine and land animals.

In coming up with the idea for the "Holocene" necklace, Matteo Nangeroni, founder of The White Whale Tattoo Society, conceptually counterposed the sacred and the ancestral.

A sacred, dreamlike image, presented in such a way as to convey all of its greatness, which he chose to combine with the most ancient symbol of religion, the body of Christ, in an iconic and infinite image.

For the artist, the combination of these concepts represents what he sees as sacred: the largest, most ancient creature, which has remained unchanged throughout the modern period of the Holocene (11,700 years), and the crucifix, which marked the beginning of the modern age in terms of faith, lack of faith, wars and conflicts over the past 2021 years.

We divide time into before and after Christ – does this separation also apply to the creatures that inhabited our planet before us? Has it affected their normal life cycle?
This is the ancestral question the artist posed himself, getting Nove25 involved in the creative process to produce a pendant with a truly unique style.