Roberta Buccellati (Genoa, 1969) is an artist, educator and researcher working across painting, photography and educational design. Her artistic practice investigates the relationship between people, environment and power, exploring how built space influences social relations, dynamics of marginality and the quality of inhabiting.

Origins and Training

She grows up in a family marked by a strong creative tension and migrant memories: one branch connected to the Buccellati goldsmithing tradition, a great-grandfather who founded an artists’ materials company abroad, an uncle at the Cairo Opera House, a father involved in singing and archaeological excavations near Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. Within this interweaving of art, culture and identity, she develops an early sensitivity for drawing and the observation of reality. She trains at the Liceo Artistico and the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti in Genoa.

The Research: Peripheries, Architecture and Memory

From the outset her research orients itself towards the human–environment–power relationship, questioning how built space influences relations, social dynamics and the quality of inhabiting. From 2002 she begins a systematic urban survey: she moves through suburbs, disused factories and coastlines, building a vast photographic archive that becomes the matrix of her painting. The architectures, particularly those of Sampierdarena (an industrial district of Genoa), become in her works symbolic devices through which to investigate urban transformations, marginality and collective memory.

Anthropological and Philosophical Approach

Her approach, rooted in anthropology and philosophy, considers spatial configurations as expressions of power relations and collective identities. Peripheries thus emerge as places of inequality but also of possibility and resistance. Her practice is an invitation to rethink contemporary inhabiting, seeking a more harmonious balance between the individual and their habitat.

Teaching and Social Projects

In parallel she develops an intense teaching and training activity. She collaborates with the Fondazione Remotti, Reggio Children and the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, designing workshop programmes for schools, families and educators. From 2015 she participates in socially engaged artistic projects, conceiving art as civic responsibility and a tool for community transformation.

Current Research

In recent years she has integrated performative experiences into her painting practice and deepened the dialogue between physical and psychological space. Her research continues to question what human beings leave on the territory as a trace of values in transformation, in a tension towards a habitat capable of preserving human dignity and complexity.

Selected Exhibitions and Awards

2019

• Arte Genova, Fondazione Garaventa, Genoa
• Mosaic and Mixed Media, Art Commission Events, Spazio HUS, Milan

2018

• Arte in Luce, Galleria Le Tracce, Genoa
• Mosaic and Mixed Media, Art Commission Events, Venice – Genoa

2017 

• Decennial Collective Exhibition, Galleria Il Punto
• Christmas Collective Exhibition 2017, Galleria Il Punto
• Collective Exhibition “Diverse Expressions 2”, Galleria Le Tracce, Genoa
• Collective Exhibition “Christmas in Art 4”, Galleria Le Tracce, Genoa

2016 

• Christmas Collective Exhibition 2016, Galleria Il Punto
• Collective Exhibition “Christmas in Art 3”, Galleria Le Tracce, Genoa

2014 

• Arte in Luce, Galleria d’Arte le Tracce, Genova