Bellezza Nelle Rotture: Finding Beauty in the Breaks

I’ve always been drawn to the way time leaves its mark on the world. The cracks in marble, the green patina on bronze, the way rust blooms across metal like a slow-burning fire. There’s something undeniably poetic about the way things break down—not as an end, but as a transformation. That’s the energy I wanted to capture in Bellezza Nelle Rotture (Beauty in Breakage).

When I started this piece, I imagined it as a kind of map—though not in the traditional sense. It’s not a guide to a physical place, but rather a cartography of fractures, a blueprint of dissolution and resilience. The grid-like structures stretch across the surface, sometimes holding firm, other times shattering into chaos. It reminds me of the way cities age, how streets crack open, how nature slowly takes back what was once claimed.

The palette plays a big role in this conversation between structure and entropy. The soft grays feel almost like fog settling over forgotten ruins, while streaks of rust and gold pulse through the cracks like veins of something still alive beneath the surface. The metallic elements aren’t just decorative; they feel like the last traces of something once grand, something that refuses to disappear entirely. Even in decay, there’s light.

I worked the surface with a mix of techniques, pushing and pulling between control and chance. Some areas are meticulously mapped out, while others let the materials take on a life of their own, breaking apart, bleeding into each other. It’s a kind of excavation process—building up layers, then peeling them back to see what’s underneath. I wanted the painting to feel tactile, like something unearthed rather than created.

There’s an undeniable density to the piece, and I know it asks a lot from the viewer. It’s not a passive painting—it wants you to engage, to trace the lines, to lose yourself in the fractures. But that’s exactly what excites me about it. There’s something deeply human about navigating brokenness, about searching for meaning in the wreckage.

In the end, Bellezza Nelle Rotture isn’t about loss. It’s about what emerges from the cracks. It’s about finding beauty in imperfection, in the quiet persistence of form amid entropy. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, this piece doesn’t try to hide its fractures—it celebrates them. Because sometimes, breaking isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning of something new.

This piece is currently In Italy available at www.colleoniroberto.it