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CHANNELING THE UNSEEN: ROBERTA BUSATO EXHIBITION "INTIMATE MYTHOLOGIES"
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This is a time of profound energy, spiritual immersion, and introspection. Symbolically considered a space of threshold between life cycles, the seen and the unseen, December is the deepest month of the year, yet it marks the seasonal promise of rebirth and light’s return. With ancient spirits roaming freely, ancestors drawing close, and Nature itself holding its breath, it encourages us to release the unnecessary and anticipate the next beginning.
Celebrating this mystical moment, we warmly invite you to visit the final weeks of Roberta Busato's latest solo exhibition, Intimate Mythologies, on view at KALPA's main venue, Palazzo Bonomini, in the historical centre of Volterra, until January 2026. As a journey across the artist’s practice with the alabaster stone from the Etruscan city, the exhibition unfolds a selection of key sculptures from Busato’s most significant series from 2021 to the present day. Mythological stories of dreamt creatures and abstract forces who live between worlds and time resonate perfectly with the artist’s vision, which blurs the boundaries between humans, animals, and nature.
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Alabaster is the chosen medium and the core of Busato's sculptural investigation. Crafted from diverse stone varieties like agate, white, and bardiglio, the sculptures possess surfaces that shift between the transparent and opaque. They are visually rich, featuring abundant inclusions, hydroxides, and metal oxides. Each vein indicates a metamorphosis, tells a story, and uncovers an underground microcosm.
Rooted in a ritual, sacred, and archetypal dimension, Busato’s art practice centers on the care of the self and self-awareness, being the cornerstone of both a personal journey and a deeply felt collective necessity. Her sculptures and bas-reliefs become the language of the soul, expressing the inexpressible, born through a meditative journey to the abysses of the self. Among them, Giano Bifronte directly addresses the duality of past and future. The piece draws upon the Roman myth of Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions, who is iconographically identified by two faces looking in opposite directions. Busato reinterprets this ancient figure, transforming it into a dream-like, fluid entity.
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In dialogue with one another, the sculptures are timeless spiritual entities, and explore the aesthetics of non-finito. Lineaments like the thin nose, the pursed mouth, and the closed eyes, which are turned inward, are smoothly polished. Other areas are left raw and unhewn, allowing the material itself to speak poetically and enhancing the overall dreamlike feeling of the composition. It is precisely this contrast that makes Busato's sculpture so moving and emotional, both primitive and contemporary, concrete and weightless.
As one of the focal pieces of the overall exhibition, Leda features a long white vein that crosses the delicate and central female body, emphasising its soft forms and simultaneously adding pathos to the overall representation. Her eyes are closed in self-reflection, merging her state with the surrounding nature. The swan’s rich plumage and the foliage where the woman lies are both rendered through careful engraved details.
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The essence of alabaster is both soft and compact, giving the sculptor the possibility to balance between strength and fragility, transparency and opacity, lustre and roughness. Supported by these physical qualities, Busato’s sculptures thin the veil between worlds. They present a combination of anthropomorphic and abstract elements, a dance of formal and informal representations, and inhabit a liminal space. Here, all hybridizations and inner metamorphoses can occur, a fertile ground where the process of change unfolds and is completed.
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“Working with alabaster is emotionally moving for me as its softness reminds me of clay. For me, it's about removing material while respecting the stone, following its shape, and revealing what lies underneath in a subtle way.”
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After graduating in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara in 2004 under Omar Galliani, Roberta Busato embarked on a multidisciplinary path. Her early years were marked by a pivotal collaboration with the "Societas Raffaello Sanzio", a period of intense research that saw her blend drawing, painting, video, and performance. This rich, cross-disciplinary foundation led her to the creation of three-dimensional sculptural works.
Exhibiting since 2000, Busato’s recent shows include the site-specific installation of Testa d’Argilla in Lana, 2025; the group show La Collina Sale Sempre, promoted by Artefora in the Langhe area in 2025; Kairos in Milan and Who Killed Bambi in Casso, promoted by Dolomiti Contemporanee in 2022. Her work has also been presented at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, The Others art fair (Artissima, Turin, 2019), the Henraux Foundation (Querceta, Lucca, 2019), and the Oliver Gustav Studio (Copenhagen, 2018).
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EXHIBITION:
Intimate Mythologies, Roberta Busato | Sculpture in alabaster
Curated by Eleonora Raspi
TIME & LOCATION:
On view until 10 January 2026
every day, 10:30 am–5 pm, or by appointment
Closed from 22 to 26, and 31 December 2025; 1 January 2026
KALPA Art Gallery in Palazzo Bonomini
Via Porta all'Arco 12-24, Volterra (PI), Italy
For additional information or assistance:
+39 389 0476417 or info@kalpa-art.it
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C R E D I T S :
Photography of Intimate Mythologies solo exhibition: Pui Yi Tam @puipuiphoto
Quotes by Roberta Busato
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