My work emerges from the intersection of light, memory, and the physical act of painting. Each canvas begins as a conversation with color — not a plan, but a negotiation between intention and accident. I am drawn to the moment when a surface begins to vibrate, when pigment transcends its material nature and becomes something atmospheric.
The "Luminous Passage" series explores the liminal spaces between architecture and landscape — doorways, corridors, the threshold where interior light meets exterior shadow. These are not depictions of specific places but rather excavations of the sensory residue that places leave behind.
I work primarily in oil on linen, building layers over weeks and sometimes months. The process is as important as the result: each painting carries the geological record of its own making. I frequently scrape back, re-gesso, and rebuild — the history of the work lives in its surface.
Elena Marchetti received her MFA from Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan (2006) and completed residencies at the American Academy in Rome and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. Her work has been exhibited at Art Basel, Frieze London, and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome. She lives and works between Milan and New York.