History

Federico Massa, also known in the world of street art as Iena Cruz, is a fine artist from Milan who has called Brooklyn home for the past ten years.
Originally trained in stage set design at Milan’s prestigious Brera Academy of Art, today he is best known around the world for his large-scale, eco-friendly murals that use a special nanotechnology-infused paint to scrub pollution from the air around them.
During the years Iena Cruz has has expanded his artistic horizons with several products in development. He has now launched his own design collection, Zurcanei, featuring custom textiles, wallpaper, mosaic, clothing and custom production for Home Art Décor and Art Installation..
In 2018, he spent 6 months practicing and studying screen printing techniques at the Gowanus Print Lab in Brooklyn, and began self-producing original silk-screened textiles as samples for future upholstery fabrics and wall coverings. The following year, in 2019, he undertook another six-month project at La Mano Pottery in Manhattan, this time focusing on the slow and beautiful art of ceramic and its process of modeling, firing, glazing and re-firing. During his experience at La Mano, he produced numerous objects including lampshades, ornamental plates and knives, pitchers, and vases.
A joint project with Jan Kath brought the worlds of street art and textile art together: Iena Cruz painted murals directly on the walls of the Jan Kath gallery in New York, replacing select areas on the wall with hand-knotted carpets in the same design, thus blurring the line between the fabric and the hand painted mural.
A new production includes Hand Woodblock Printing, designed in NYC hand-made in Jaipur. Inspired by a passion for artisanal traditions, Iena Cruz decided to explore textile production based on the woodblock printing, an ancient technique of India. The idea is to support and draw attention to the importance of preserving artisanal traditions. The beauty of this collection,  its aesthetic qualities: it is respect for labor, ethically sourced materials, and a sustainable mode of production.
He also recently produced hand-made marble mosaics on an original design, dedicated to custom-size Mural Marble Mosaic. The tiles have irregular shapes and are cut by hand, by water-jet, or shaped by small blocks. Marbles, granites, Venetian glazes, ecological glazes were used from recycled glass, lead-free.
"For Iena Cruz, collaboration is an essential part of his work, and he is constantly exploring new ways to apply his personal vision to the techniques required to produce diverse products. In all that he does, eco-friendly and sustainable materials and methods of production are of the highest importance.”