THE SOUL OF PSICHE: ROBERTA BUSATO'S NEW ALABASTER SCULPTURE 

The story of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche unfolds a symbiosis of instinct and consciousness laying within each of us. Despite being an ancient fable, it is still exquisitely contemporary. The new masterpiece by Roberta Busato (Verona, 1976) is created within this conceptual framework and is named after Psyche, indicating both the female mythological figure - a symbol of rationality, and the ancient Greek term referring to vital breath - soul.

Psiche symbolizes the pivot of a new cycle in the artist's sculptural journey, a renewed awareness of her creative identity, of the material and its idiosyncrasies, and finally a desire to shed light on her own artistic vision. The sculpted face is distinguished by admirable details that together compose a concert of supreme harmony: the half-closed, asymmetrical eyes, the pronounced nose, and the fleshy lips. Merging female and masculine somatic traits, Psiche stands as a timeless, austere, and delicate spiritual entity.

One of the many interpretations of the word "alabaster" is related to the cult of the Egyptian goddess Bast, featuring a female body and a cat's head and often depicted on vases made in such material.

Enlightened and divine stone, the secret of alabaster lies in its translucence displaying an iridescent surface and infinite depths.

Through this work, Busato follows an act of exploration of the unconscious aiming at the revelation of the stone itself and its ability to traverse centuries of workmanship, forms, and uses. Hidden veins of colour and mineral inclusions are intrinsic to alabaster, which is indeed a timeless reflection of the land between Volterra and the Tyrrhenian Sea through past and present civilizations.

The vastness of its hilly landscape, together with the richness of its Etruscan heritage, the precious materials of salt, alabaster and panchino provide the perfect setting for a profound creative act, aimed towards contemplation and reconnection with one's self.

Psiche was born in this context, following the first group of sculptures in white alabaster, agate, and bardiglio part of the series Enlightened Stone. For this project, aiming to achieve an even greater understanding of the stone, the artist spent a period immersed in Escaia, in the nature of the Volterra area, studying traditional working tools and methodologies.

The artist rediscovered the nuances of such a material whose composition requires different processes compared to those of more traditional stones. The alabaster is by its nature, both soft and compact giving the sculptor the possibility to balance between the formal and the informal, transparency and opacity, lustre and roughness, concave and convex surfaces. Busato's work is where this balance is clearly sensed.

Innermost rituals are given voice through the sculptures of Enlightened Stone series.

The series Enlightened Stone includes a selection of lightly sculpted faces with eyes and mouth closed, and the nose at times barely pronounced. Each of them unfolds the passages of a ritual performed by the artist in the presence of the material found in the territory by observation, excavation, to the discovery of the soul.

While presenting different angles of the same identity, each sculpture is repeated in the context of the rituals, namely of the snake, of healing, of the wind, of silence, and of knowledge. Ancient beliefs, handed down to our own day, take on a new form being reinterpreted, establishing an unusual connection between past civilizations and today's anthropocentric society.

Agata Macchiata. Ritual of Healing, sculpture in agate. The rite bears witness to an encounter: it is the awareness of a condition of pain and, at the same time, the possibility of facing and overcoming the suffering caused by it.

Busato's work revolves around the human figure, soul, and body, investigating emotions such as uncertainty, fragmentation, and reconciliation.

Agata Scura. Ritual of Wind, sculpture in agate. The energy of the wind is unique and very powerful. And since the wind gains its magical power from direction rather than strength, light breezes are just as powerful as storms.

Ancient forms, rituals and languages exist through an exciting dialogue between the finite and the unfinished.

Limen, white alabaster sculpture. The space of limine is where all kinds of hybridization and metamorphosis are possible, where change happens and is completed.

Photography by Olga Niescier and Simone Stanislai for KALPA 

KALPA INSTAGRAM