Archaic energy of raw earth.

ROBERTA BUSATO: THE ARCHAIC ENERGY OF RAW EARTH

KALPA Galleries are proud to present a selection of fascinating sculptures in raw earth by Roberta Busato (1976), offering deep insights into the Italian artist’s multidisciplinary long-term research with mineral and raw materials.

Ordinary people, ancient divinities and spiritual entities populate Busato’s creative universe to take on new life within her series of sculptures, bas-reliefs and polyptychs, Sky Heads Meditation, Lovers and Buildings. These are powerful and introspective human representations in unfired earth and straw, in which matter and process dominate: a gallery of earth-colour heads with closed eyes, solitary faces and bodies trapped within confined spaces and self-portraits seemingly beyond time and history.

"Raw earth is the oldest material. Retracing its journey is like retracing the history of humanity. This is a material that has lived in contact with man for centuries."

Leaning towards figurative representation, Busato focuses on the essence of humanity, both the inner self and the outer body, encompassing feelings of the never-ending quest, uncertainty, fragmentation, and reconciliation. Among her sculptural heads, the Sky Heads Meditation series distinguishes itself for the striking blue pigment, symbolizing overall the artist's journey of becoming one with the universe in a meditative state.

Each face always begins with two raw earth bricks, an architectural module, embodying the conceptual core of Busato’s work: the human condition within a space or a place. As argued by the artist, all her heads are part of a cycle of works that will never come to an end. A journey that continues, in which Busato turns back and moves on, from a delicate time in her career when she felt the urgency to close her gaze, a gesture that would emerge as the discovery of a multiplicity of universes within each one of us.

Busato's journey with raw earth expands with her encounter with Architect Matteo Brioni and the setting of her studio in a dedicated space within the brickyard complex of his eponymous company, with the goal of working and experimenting with such material. The artist creates solely by hand, modeling a compound of clay and natural elements like straw, grass, and raw earth, and left simply to dry in the air. A fundament component of her work is the temporal dimension captured in the memories of the artist’s encounter with the raw material while its core lies in the actual process. As in a performative act, when sculpting the artist aims to unveil a deeper and spiritual dimension that reaches beyond the shaped form.

Busato’s sculptures are a tribute to the earth and take on new relevance as conversations around the concepts of identity, visibility and survival on our planet develop. As the diptych Lovers testifies, her work embraces a natural and archaic aesthetic while pushing the boundaries of sustainability in contemporary art and in the tradition of sculpture-making. Raw earth-sustainable materials are emerging as a compelling medium in our present times, shedding light on atavistic representations of the human body and primitive shapes. Busato is actively taking part in this art trend, narrating the never forgotten gestures of our origins and the dreams of our present.

"The choice of this natural material, rich in history and symbolism, and the refinement of a technical and creative process of decomposition and recomposition of form represent the two fundamental moments of Busato's deeply poetic artistic work."

Visionary buildings: bas-reliefs in raw earth

Art is a great opportunity to view existence through an extraordinary lens and so to investigate our present while reflecting on the journey of our past. The contemporary feeling of restriction and imprisonment, as well as the constant physical and mental burden experienced within our cities and busy environments are the source of inspiration and stimulus for the 2021 Buildings polyptychs. Exploring the idea of isolation, these two large theatrical sculptures - with backdrops representing domestic walls - display a succession of people immersed within themselves.

"There is a lot of theatre within my earthwork. I like to use raw earth because it is something we walk on. I dig it, take it and work it to create a sculpture. This is a performative act."

Busato's background in theatre and scenographic space is key and informs her overall approach to visual art. She regards her practice as a discipline, in which the process lies at her work's core and the earth becomes the sublimation of form, a ductile material that creates volume.

Roberta Busato (Verona, 1976) lives and works between Mantova and Pietrasanta. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara where she graduated in Painting in 2004, under the supervision of Omar Galliani. In addition to her studies, she started collaborating with the Theatre Company “Societas Raffaello Sanzio”. During these years of research, Roberta pursued a multidisciplinary creative vision, integrating drawing with painting, video with theatre, and performance that led her eventually to expand her artistic outcome on tridimensional sculptural works. Among her recent exhibitions, there are the collective shows Kairos in Milan and Who Killed Bambi in Casso, promoted by Dolomiti Contemporanee in 2022 and the solo show Enlightened Stone in Volterra curated by KALPA Art Living Galleries in 2021. Her work has been also shown at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, The Others Art fair (Artissima, Turin, 2019), Henraux Foundation (Querceta, Lucca, 2019), and Oliver Gustav Studio (Copenaghen, 2018).

Photography of Roberta Busato's artworks: Vittorio Marrucci for KALPA

Photography of Roberta Busato, artist in residence at Villa Arnica 2021: Franziska Unterholzner, courtesy The Artist

Quotes: Roberta Busato and Alessandra Klimciuk

KALPA INSTAGRAM