Michela Fabeni's Bas-Reliefs | Textured Art and Creative Process: Smussato, Matter and Rebirth
- michelafabeni
- May 10
- 3 min read
The artistic research originates as a process of rebirth. During a profound phase of personal transformation, while the artist is engaged in a journey of self-recovery, a primary need takes shape: to establish a direct contact with matter.
From this original necessity, a spontaneous and physical gesture emerges. The work begins with bare hands and a spatula, which becomes a natural extension of the body. The surface is no longer a boundary, but a field of exploration. Initially, the expressive space manifests itself on boundaryless walls; later, when these are no longer sufficient, the canvas becomes the chosen support.
In this transition, the first forms emerge: anthropomorphic, vegetal and animal figures, often featuring wing-like or webbed hands, as presences expanding beyond the edge, as if no boundary existed. The forms seek continuity, movement and openness.
The creative process is later defined and recognized as Smussato: a gesture that refers to shaping, smoothing roughness, and establishing a dialogue between fullness and emptiness. The full areas correspond to thickness and sculptural presence; the empty areas are flat surfaces that reveal what lies in depth.
The palette knife cuts and reveals, while the hand listens, accompanies, cuts and caresses at the same time. The gesture is not only technical, but relational.
Natural elements also take part in the process: air, light, sun and drying time. The material is prepared manually, combining organic substances with warm water until a fluid consistency is achieved. Only then is it shaped on the canvas.
Subsequently, hands and palette knife are used to build the form, applying pigments, metals, gold leaf and silver leaf. The process is not imposed but followed. There is no forcing: matter itself, together with natural elements, contributes to the final form.
The works go through an initial phase of fragility: they may crumble and require time and care. During this phase, they are accompanied through gestures of protection and consolidation, including the use of a wide brush, as if caring for a living creature.
The material is then “strengthened” over time until it stabilizes. The creative process is experienced as a natural cycle: birth, growth, transformation and detachment.
In this vision, matter is energy in motion. Everything is continuous transformation. The artist perceives an ongoing dialogue with nature and the universe, as an act of listening to the breath of matter itself.
Light plays a central role: it is not only a visual element but a revelation. Surfaces become luminous scars that narrate change and the memory of the gesture.
The work does not represent what is visible, but what inhabits the inner world: invisible energy, intuition and emotional tension.
The feminine figure runs throughout the entire path as an archetypal presence: generative force, fragility and power coexist in balance. The works thus become a hymn to life, transformation and inner evolution.
The artist does not assign herself a fixed definition but recognizes herself in a becoming identity, linked to time and transformation. Creativity is understood as a universal spark present in every human being.
Gold leaf, a recurring element, carries symbolic value: it illuminates, reveals and preserves. It changes with light and contributes to making the work alive and constantly shifting in perception.
Overall, the poetics unfolds as a dialogue between matter and light, control and surrender, initial fragility and final structure, in a process in which matter itself becomes testimony of time and transformation.
Discover the artist’s complete journey and works at www.michelafabeniart.com
For information and collaborations: michelafabeni@libero.it
Follow on social media for updates, exhibitions, and new projects: @michelafabeniart
Michela Fabeni
Artist of the Third Millennium
Explore the world of artistic research and writing on the official blog, regularly updated.
