by Ilaria Ferri

Alice Corbetta (Milan, 1964) graduated in Painting at the Brera Academy under Gottardo Ortelli and began with engravings for Antonio Mercurio’s Lunaria. In the 1990s, she collaborated with fashion companies, developing design projects and rug collections for Italian and Belgian firms. Since 2007, she has lived in Tuscany, focusing on materiality and surface through lime, pigments, and oxidized metals. Her works, characterized by rough and almost threedimensional textures, have been exhibited in both public and private venues.

You won the XII edition of the COMEL Prize with the work “Memorie in superficie”. (Memories on the Surface). In this work of art you describe your intention to transform the cold modernity of metal into a surface that feels almost archaeological. The aluminium sheets become the lived-in skin of treated materials that seem to carry years, centuries, and stories. How did the idea for this work come about?

My works are tactile narratives: in this painting I wanted to create a language through textures and the aluminium surface that reflects light. Every detail is conceived as a gesture, a harmony of contrasts between the solidity of matter and the lightness of illumination.

How did you discover aluminium and what was your experience working with it?

I have a passion for metals and I often use them in my creations. Aluminium, in particular, is light, malleable, and resistant to corrosion. I really enjoy how it reflects light — I would even say it has a certain “warmth.”

La natura del Tempo, Galleria Focus Palazzo Corsini, 2025

The critic Carlo Giorgetti defines your works as “artistic supports that stimulate each person’s personal interpretation.” How important is it for you to establish a dialogue with those who observe your works? Do you believe art has a maieutic dimension?

I find this possibility fascinating, because the creation of an artwork is for me the crystallization of an inner process, and it becomes a living dialogue when it activates emotional depth in the observer. The observer is like a reflective mirror, expressing through perception and sensitivity a personal narrative that enriches my vision. I believe Art is a fundamental expression of human existence, and at times it can indeed have a maieutic dimension.

The themes of memory and time often recur in your artworks, even through materials that embody transformations — oxides, pigments, clays, metals — capable of changing over the years. How important is memory to you, and in what way do these “evolving” materials help convey the passage of time in your works? Are you fascinated by the idea that a piece continues to change even after its completion?

I interpret memory as stratifications of emotions, where the surfacing of lived experience becomes a relic. Memory is tied to the concept of Time. Time is a convention invented by humans to contain Space. Personally, I visualize this temporal flow as circular rather than linear, where everything happens now and the only true existence is the present moment.

Esopianeta, 2023

Son figlia della Terra e del Cielo stellato – Galleria La Fonderia, Florence

You use different materials — canvas, panels, jute, clay, metals, even rare ones like Armenian bole. You transform them through complex processes. Which do you feel most connected to? How do you choose the right material for an idea?

I like to think of myself as an alchemist: through experimentation and the rediscovery of ancient techniques, I have found my expressive language. It is the idea itself that suggests the right materials to manifest it.

In your creative process, how much depends on preliminary planning and how much arises directly from contact with the material? And within this journey, is there a specific stage — preparation of the support, layering, oxidation, or finishing — that you consider the true “heart” of the work?

First there is a vision, like a dream, of what I would like to create, and then it transforms through the material. It is a kind of interpenetration of experience. The work also has its own independence, and sometimes through the act of making and the material it leads to unexpected results — and this amazes me every time!

In ogni modo, Mostra Fornace Pasquinucci

You also create interior decorations and interventions on furniture: a different aspect but consistent with your ability to work with complex materials and techniques. Between the creative and the artisanal component, which do you feel is more yours?

Both, each nourishes the other, because every experience enriches me. I greatly enjoy applying my artistic research to a design project and creating objects or furniture that can bring beauty into the everyday lived space.

San Lorenzo – Main Deck Salon

How do you imagine the evolution of your work in the coming years? Do you think you will continue to explore matter, or would you like to open new directions?

I think I will continue to use materials, including new ones, because the interaction that arises with them is very fascinating — it is always a challenge and a new adventure.