ENLIGHTENED STONE in Palazzo dei Priori, Volterra, photography by Simone Stanislai

ENLIGHTENED STONE

ROBERTA BUSATO | SCULPTURE IN ALABASTER

Curated by Eleonora Raspi for KALPA Art Living

Created with MATTEOBRIONI

PALAZZO DEI PRIORI, VOLTERRA

4 SEPTEMBER - 7 NOVEMBER 2021

Patronage by:  Regione Toscana, Municipality of Volterra

Sustained by:  Locatelli Saline di Volterra, Romano Bianchi Alabastro

ENLIGHTENED STONE in Palazzo dei Priori, Volterra, video by Vittorio Marrucci, music by Alchimia Sonica

THE STONE RADIATES AND REVEALS ITSELF TO THE ARTIST

After a long-time working with raw earth and modelling tools, Roberta Busato (Verona, 1976) approaches Volterra Alabaster for the first time, creating a series of new and enigmatic faces in agate, white alabaster and bardiglio. The artist's new solo show, ENLIGHTENED STONE, unfolds the passages of a ritual performed by the artist in the presence of the material found in the territory: observation, excavation, the discovery of the soul. As the only interpreter of its message, Busato acts as an emotional vehicle between her audience and the stone.

The represented entities in the exhibition are connected not to a single mythology, but to archetypal mythological figures of a past feeling, in which man lived harmoniously with Nature and the Divine. Etruscan Volterra, the undisputed capital of Alabaster, is the setting of the exhibition and source of inspiration. Installed in the Sala del Giudice Conciliatore of Palazzo dei Priori, the lightly sculpted heads emerge from the theatrical fifth behind them, created by Architect Matteo Brioni: an imposing raw-earth wall in black pepper color, finely conceived in his Gonzaga company. In the foreground, five sculptures in the process of transformation, connecting two historical times betwixt completeness and incompleteness.

The visitor is invited to participate in a real theatrical act, performing a sort of rite of passage, once having crossed the threshold of the hall, to become an active participant in the scene. “As if captured in a state of ecstasy, the heads are thoughtful, detached from daily materiality. This, then, is a theatrical representation of a metamorphosis”, points out Eleonora Raspi, the exhibition curator.

Each sculpture tells a story of the soil’s different minerals and chemical composition, revealed through the shades of colour or its veins. Alabaster itself is at the centre of the artist’s investigation, and consequently, the exhibition shows five of its different varieties rich in inclusions, hydroxides and metal oxides: Bardiglio, Agata Chiara, Agata Scura, Agata and Agata Macchiata.

Read more:    http://kalpa-art.it/enlightene...

Detail of ENLIGHTENED STONE set up, wall finish in MultiTerra pepe nero colour by MATTEOBRIONI

KALPA CREATIVE PARTNER

Last December MATTEOBRIONI and KALPA began a collaboration based on the common principles of elegance, mastery and wabi-sabi across the landscape of interior design and the philosophy of art living.

MATTEOBRIONI Srl was founded in 2010 based on Architect Matteo Brioni’s study, vision and passion for architecture, enriched by one hundred years of his family’s history, tradition and experience in clay and brick. Over the past ten years, Brioni has instigated research projects into the use of natural clay as a building material that offers the quality of ultrapure pigments. The continuous research and experimentation, challenging the limits of the material, are resulting in the uniqueness, sustainability and raw beauty of MATTEOBRIONI products, that are ideally suited to the natural cladding of architectural surfaces while at the same maintaining the highest contemporary performance.

Discover more:  https://matteobrioni.com/

KALPA INSTAGRAM