1976 | Rivolta d'Adda | Italia
Alessandra Rovelli, born in Rivolta d’Adda (CR), where she lives and works, draws inspiration from the continuous blurring of the boundary between sky and earth, from rarefied atmospheres. She has always studied the landscape to sense its scents and to tell its stories.
During her training as a ceramic technician and at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, she developed a strong interest in materials and their versatility, painting even large-scale canvases. Fundamental to her practice is the tactile component achieved through the stratification of natural materials such as charcoal, ash, and barren earth.
Since 2016, Rovelli’s experimentation has focused almost exclusively on the Life-Boxes: cardboard boxes onto which she applies canvas, thus giving the work a third dimension. At this stage, the works become smaller, the brushstroke thickens, and the palette changes, resolving into vibrations of color and light. The impact of introducing the box is not only physical but also—and above all—conceptual: inside the Life-Boxes, the artist inserts messages written on pieces of paper that somehow deepen the theme of the painting, yet remain inaccessible to the viewer, opening a silent and mysterious communication between artist and observer.
Over the years, she has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums, as well as in public and private spaces, both in Italy and abroad.
27 Jan-02 Feb 2026
Vernissage
Tuesday 27 Jan 18:30-21:30
The works presented belong to a recent body of research and are developed in medium and medium-large formats, through both canvases and Life-Boxes, elements that extend painting toward an object-based dimension. In all cases, the surface is never a simple support, but a space of stratification and accumulation, marked by layers, veils, and abrasions.
The technique is based on the use of powdered pigments and oxides, charcoal, and ash, mixed with acrylic binders. The pictorial matter appears dense and irregular, maintaining a constant tension between control and chance. Color is never merely decorative, but deeply connected to its physical and tactile presence.
The compositions are often structured in horizontal bands, evoking unstable horizons, inner landscapes, or geological sections. Lighter areas interact with darker, more compact fields, creating gradual transitions rather than sharp contrasts, as if each image were the result of a slow process of transformation.
In the Life-Boxes, the physical depth of the support enhances the object-like quality of the work, which appears as an extracted fragment, almost archaeological in nature. The restrained color palette—dominated by earthy tones, greys, and deep blues—encourages a slow, contemplative viewing.
Within the context of Wall, these works establish a quiet yet intense dialogue with the space, inviting viewers to read the surfaces as traces, incomplete maps, or territories shaped by time, where meaning remains open and unresolved.