Michela Fabeni Art Gallery | The Smussato Technique: Origin and Creative Process | Contemporary Bas-reliefs
- michelafabeni
- Feb 15
- 2 min read
My art was born in a moment of personal rebirth, when I was rediscovering myself without knowing what to expect from the present or the future. It was in that suspended time that I began exploring material on canvas. Everything started with a spontaneous gesture, from a physical need to touch, carve, and feel. I was not used to working on canvas — I had always loved expressing myself without boundaries on walls — but adapting to that limit opened a new possibility.
With patience, I began working the surface, observing each movement and listening to what happened beneath my hands. From this dialogue my technique emerged: Smussato — a process in which material is carved, shaped, and revealed through direct contact. Forms are not rigidly designed — they arise. Symbols and Anthropomorphic figures, full and almost winged hands, presences that seem to emerge from the canvas, dissolving its edges.
My work always begins with gesture and contact. I use bare hands because I need to feel the material. The palette knife has become a natural extension of the body, a tool that cuts and heals at the same time. Marks, pressure, and incisions become visible transformation.
Within my bas-reliefs, a continuous dialogue develops between fullness and emptiness, light and depth. When I introduce gold, I am not decorating — I am sealing a passage. Gold represents memory, value, and transformation — the moment when matter becomes awareness.
Everything speaks of delicacy and power together, of a feeling that does not need words, only silence and light to be felt. Matter becomes voice, gesture becomes emotion, and art becomes a bridge between what exists and what is perceived.
The creative process follows natural timing made of layering, drying, and strengthening. It may last weeks or months. I move by instinct, yet within a precise structure. It is in the balance between control and surprise that each artwork becomes alive, maintaining a living and unrepeatable presence.
If you wish to enter my creative world, visit www.michelafabeniart.com
For information, artworks, or collaborations write to michelafabeni@libero.it
Follow me on social media and share the journey in continuous evolution. @michelafabeniart
Michela Fabeni
Artist of the Third Millennium
Explore the blog and let matter reveal new visions to you.
