Millefoglie (2022) transforms Stefano Contiero’s fascination with layered complexity into a systematic study of sweetness, color, and visual indulgence. Created during summer 2022 and named after the classic French pastry with its thousand delicate layers, this collection of 444 works embraces what the artist describes as “something fun, something sweet, something colorful.” Each composition presents translucent geometric forms that stack, overlap, and cascade like crystalline confections, their surfaces rendered with subtle gradients and prismatic effects.
These layered compositions achieve their distinctive charm through sophisticated algorithms that simulate thousands of translucent forms stacking upon one another. These “sand walkers,” each carrying a single shade, create complex color relationships through accumulated presence rather than individual complexity. Soft pastels and vibrant hues layer like sheets of colored glass, with their translucent surfaces creating depth effects that echo Josef Albers’ systematic color investigations and the synesthetic color-music explorations of Kandinsky.
Like the French pastry that inspired its name, each work achieves richness through accumulation of delicate layers, connecting to the artist’s synesthetic experiences where visual patterns trigger gustatory sensations, transforming viewing into multisensory encounter.
Released through fxhash as a completely free collection, Millefoglie embodied Contiero’s generous impulse to share aesthetic pleasure as widely as possible. This gesture transformed the work into both artwork and gift, reflecting the artist’s belief that certain expressions of joy should flow freely through communities, like offering dessert to everyone at the table rather than restricting access through economic barriers.
What makes Millefoglie particularly significant within Contiero’s evolution is its demonstration that conceptual depth and visual pleasure need not be mutually exclusive. The work achieves complexity through the accumulation of simple elements, each layer contributing to an experience that transcends its individual components. This exploration of sweetness as aesthetic principle would later find more explosive expression in Abbondanza (2023), where visual abundance and joyful celebration would be channeled through expressive force rather than delicate layering, yet here maintains a delicate balance between richness and restraint.