Beyond a shadow of a doubt, shadow has been associated with life and art since their very beginning, just as shadow, beyond a shadow of a doubt, has always been an integral part of Bettineschi’s work. In life, shadow is a fleeting but ever-present darkness, the virtuality of the consistency of reality, an intangible blackness and the antithesis of the whiteness of light, the negative of being and yet the very essence of existence here and now. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, shadow is the image without representing the present - an eclipse of life itself. Scrutinized and explored by mankind ever since the beginning of time, shadow is a source of occupation and preoccupation in science, religion and art – the three disciplines that contend over the significance of shadow more than any other, whether for optical, symbolic or spiritual reasons.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, a shadow cast from the sovereignty of the universe, from behind a street corner, or even from the unknown realms of the afterlife, has always inspired mystery and discovery in civilization which is destined to privilege sight and attain the triumphs of vision. Perhaps this is why art has given it such a central role and even formulated a theory of shade, and indeed shade plays a pivotal role in Bettineschi’s work.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, shadow marks the boundary between the tangible and the intangible - it begins at the point where a body meeting the end of light begins or ends. These three elements (shadow, body and light) hover between two- and three-dimensionality, and between painting and sculpture - one of art’s most ancient enigmas.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, one interesting difference is the shadow made by a translucent or even a transparent body. In this case, light does not end where it meets the body and where the shadow begins; rather, it passes through it, and the boundaries between light, body and shade become ephemeral, penetrating each other and blending together. In fact a shadow in a drawing or a painting is often blurred and indistinct. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Mariella Bettineschi is aware of this ancient enigma – for years she has used translucent material like tracing paper, still used by architects even since the advent of the computer, or the transparency of glass.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the reason why she uses these two elements is because her work is closer to sculpture than painting.
Bettineschi uses these materials for painting, drawing, etching or screen-printing to create distinct and indistinct images. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is her way of producing signs and images that are as ephemeral as contemporary life. Yet what is most striking is the way they are often resting on a base on the ground and leaning against the wall, as if they are presented as “sculptures” or “installations” rather than paintings, drawings or photographs. Her work is therefore determined not only by what is represented, but also by the microspace and the actual shadow it creates. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Bettineschi creates a relationship between two- and three dimensionality, between representation and presentation, between fiction and reality, between… and ….
As a way of shedding light on the darkness, the work exhibited at GAMeC is the synthesis of what I have just said. It is basically a “sculpture/installation”, composed of a narrow wooden base fitted with panes of glass etched with drawings, and placed in a staggered arrangement to break the linearity of space and the image.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Bettineschi’s way of using glass and the familiarity of her etched images distinctly recall the work of Duchamp, as many have pointed out. However, Duchamp used glass and images to negate art, while Bettineschi uses them to proclaim it, firstly because she draws from tradition, and secondly because the drawings on glass are what she calls “internal drawings”. Her  give them a sense of structure.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, painting, drawing, sculpture and installation converge with each other and the surrounding space; and by creating movement of light and shadow, Bettineschi makes space the very essence of her work.

Mariella Bettineschi has undertaken an intelligent and rigorous voyage to some American and Italian cultural institutions which have decided to exhibit her work.
Her work draws inspiration from life, history, culture and art. It is a process of accumulation, and what counts is not so much the means of expression but the outcome, which is free and unconfined yet also rigorous and exacting. In following her passions, Mariella Bettineschi does not fall back on her rich artistic background. She conveys a conscious relationship with technology and values its extraordinary potential. In favoring technological progress, which can so often undermine the foundations of human experience, is one of the ways Mariella Bettineschi perceives contemporary life. Her technical mastery – in painting, photography and video – opens unexpected perspectives which generate and nourish a constantly evolving poetical theme.
Bettineschi goes against the idea of overstating imagery and fuels a slowly evolving process which refuses to stabilize due to the constant stimulus it is confronted with. This relationship with technology forces us to constantly re-examine the categories and criteria we use to organize our memory and awareness. Perceiving changes in the world of art through immediate perceptions and intuitions often means questioning our path and taking a different direction which filters the complexities of various problems. This instinct is fuelled by a deep involvement in the cultural dimension in which we are faced with these objects of reflection. The wealth of the Mariella Bettineschi’s work poses fascinating questions which anticipate future developments of contemporary language.
Mariella Bettineschi’s poetry draws from and transforms a visionary view of daily life. She maintains a conscious creative bond with reality. Her art is unrhetorical –the dilemma of creation is preceded by rigorous mental analysis, in the knowledge that each and every one of us is the outcome of past experiences which continue to live inside us.
Bettineschi investigates issues with a freedom of association that spans all disciplines and cultures; she responds to new questions using all of art’s resources; she conveys the power of transformation and the wealth of this metamorphosis; she shows emotional restraint and a persistent sense of the future. These are all the components that transform Bettineschi’s work into a unique resource, rather, a source of reflection that balances rationality and imagination. We see our age through the eyes of artists: “recognizing is understanding”, as Ernst H. Gombrich once said. Artists cultivate the ability to restore links between events, so often rid of any connections, and to develop new streams of thought.
Mariella Bettineschi’s work follows this philosophy. As she explores the open sea of contemporary culture, she insists on cultivating a deep and profound interest in one of man’s most mysterious activities: drawing.
Bettineschi goes beyond her artistic training and explores the timeless cultural interest of this core of communication. Despite its apparent immediacy, drawing links different cognitive systems - from perception, memory and action to the interfaces between them.
Mariella Bettineschi’s approach to this activity, which is as old as the world itself, uses new technology. Rather than undervaluing its potential, she confirms a boundless vitality which not even the most recent theories are able to explain. As children, we can draw spontaneously, yet as we grow up we lose this skill and have to learn it all over again. Drawing covers all cultures and is usually understood automatically without needing a specific education. The depth and density of this means of expression contemplates the fact that not everything that is visible can be drawn, and gives knowledge and awareness a unique perspective. It takes our mind on the great adventure of vision: works of art live on an uncontainable force which they accumulate and convey to the viewer.
I sincerely hope that Mariella Bettineschi is able to maintain the freshness, curiosity and conviction that distinguish her unique investigation of the world through art.
I have often wondered about the opportunity of an artist exhibiting his/her work in the city in which he/she lives and works, and have always had some doubts. It is, of course, a positive thing to exhibit one’s work: the public eye is fundamental for art in all its forms. Establishing a relationship with others is a primary need of any artist. While finding a need already in his/her work, the artist still seeks the appreciation of others, whatever his/her recognition in the art world. When this need is met by public institutions, the question becomes even more complex. One answer I have given is that everything makes sense if the work of an artist finds its own space in the world. This can certainly be said of Mariella Bettineschi’s work.

The Italian artist, Mariella Bettineschi is currently having her first exhibitions in the United States. Each in the series shows a different part of Bettineschi’s current practice. Each exhibition is site specific, even though certain elements may be shared with other venues. The Italian artist Mariella Bettineschi exhibits her last work in the United States. Every exhibition shows a part of the whole project and it is “site specific”.  Bettineschi states “my interest is with the place where it is and for me it is very important to visit the room before installing my work.”
Bettineschi’s work derives from Arte Povera of the 1960s. At first that seems odd looking at Bettineschi’s material sleekness. The arte povera generation were informalists who dabbled with detritus and made lyrical assemblies with crass stuff. The work was hands on, anti- or non-industrial, crude, and impoverished.  They made poetry of ruin and rags, tawdry neon and lead strewn around or positioned in situ. With radical insight they criticized imperialism, capitalism, and the position of institutions. They made you look at the situation and “objects” in a new way.
Bettineschi does that too. Each installation, either outside or in a museum venue, is so succinct that the viewer subtly becomes aware of the artist’s guiding. When you see her sources, they are as direct as the previous generation. Though she now uses digital photography, printers and computer manipulation, this technology is not beyond the grasp of most viewers; we see mercantile windows done in the same occupational manner daily. Such technology is quite common today. It the nature of the imagery, not its modus, that is different.
An artist is an alchemist. She sifts memories, fables, sand and silt into the maw of the mind and spins threads of gold. The true artist doesn’t need a loom or a philosopher’s stone to do this; the sibyl herself is that catalyst that weaves sights into visions, sounds into chorales, events into epics. Although purity of heart is to will one thing, there are many kinds of saints, each with a varied path, each with miraculous feats, tortures, and miracles. Some artists are meteoric, glowing spectacularly then vanishing. Other artists grow more slowly, incorporating their experiences like accretions of a shell to gain breadth. Mariella Bettineschi’s works are more than the sum of plain parts.At the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of The University of the Arts, Bettineschi the artist is presenting a theatrical space with references to Marcel Duchamp. If we are surprised that an artist would attempt to carry coals to Newcastle, take on Duchamp in Philadelphia, we must remember that Duchamp was a master of three continents and that the Italian gallerist Arturo Schwartz had much to do with the resurrection of Duchamp’s reputation. The artist speaks of leaving traps for the viewer and again one thinks of Duchamp’s Trebuchet (1917). Duchamp’s work was erotic (as is life) and charged and metaphoric. He too dealt with alchemical change, transitions and transformations in states of being. His work, like Bettineschi’s, was both abstract and representational.
Bettineschi talks about the inner drawings of things. That inner drawing is the core of each thing’s essence. She makes us question what and where are the boundaries between the private and the public. Bettineschi’s earlier drawings: wounds, and stigmatas cut through fabric, books, and paper, instead of being concrete and tactile have become oddly automatized, otherworldly, dimensionless. Like memories, these marks, take from the world but exist elsewhere. As with Duchamp’s infra-mince, the ultimate thinness, Bettineschi carries us along in the spaces between things, from the second to fourth dimensions and, here, beyond.  Their particular glow is celestial, comprised of meteoric dust. “ This immaterial effect does not prevent us from building a meaning.”
The installation is comprised of NUMBER(insert how many here!!!!) 30 images printed on glass. She has used painted or printed glass for over 20 years. Glass is used as a showcase, a reliquary, a plinth, a slab, a perfect orb, a thing present but not there.  It is transparent to process, yet spectacularly vitreous, gemlike. By nature, its planar surface is sleek, classical. As in reverse paintings or illuminated manuscripts, the glass varnishes the images, making their color glow. She is interested in this luminosity, this electric aura of things. By using glass as a support, the images float in space. Being transparent allows the signs, their site, and the viewer to interact in a real way.  As transparencies they are light as angel wings, the images are filaments or skeins of language to be tied and woven into a poem. Some images stay close to their sources, we see water drops, buildings etc. Some carry us along: we see gears and cogs, notches and glyphs like computer punch cards, arrows, and keyholes. Some images remain clear, The Ocular Witness makes one focus, as acuity needs an optical target. Although some objects remain concretely real, others are morphed into a theater of the unreal. Duchamp’s waterwheel is capsized onto a Tatlin-like apparatus on diagonal. Others are as hazy as an Adam Fuss photogram. The artist then takes us on metaphoric journeys through time and space; she uses “travel” as a metaphor to transport the viewer. Some arcs are enormous: one charts the transit of the moon; Planetario 1 marks a pre-Galilean (the earth is located centrally) celestial map of planetary orbits amongst the signs of the zodiac. Disegni 17 plots the voyages of earthly explorers like Magellan and Columbus. Disegni II, a disc with enigmatic letters around the perimeter, reveals itself as straightforward international airport codes.  Another morphed photograph of an industrial space with reversed lettering reads “Sanomatalo” with difficulty. To innocent American eyes unaccustomed to world travel it is gibberish, to Europeans it is the name of a new Finnish building. The total of traces of thought connect like words in a sentence making a whole.  A digital palimpsest, a concatenation of signs drifts poetically from image to image. Bettineschi states, “although I work in fragments, I try to keep them together like a thread keeps pearls in a necklace. My way of thinking makes me collect things around me even if they are not related to each other and they are inconsistent… I consider these elements as little traps, to catch the real, to try to understand and build meanings of things.” Her entire oeuvre follows this praxis; it places the work in the lineage of installation art. The parts are not haphazard or arbitrary; they flow with a sense of personal yet formal syntax.
Yet one is often transported by the random incident as those of grave import. Consider the impact of the fleeting glance of a beautiful girl from a window of a moving train; Duchamp fell immediately in love with this maiden, transfixed her visage in his memory. This chance occurrence in turn became the impetus for the painting Dulcinea (1911).  
At the end of the gallery array are two penultimate images of a bella donna. Brazenly yet ethereally naked, she is the elusive embodiment of Our Lady of the Glass, rather than Duchamp’s mechanical bride. Bettineschi’s Madonna is of our time, of the 21st century, not the Futuro/Cubism of the last. The fact that all the Bride’s coordinates have been starkly graphic and monochromatic up to her portion of the installation makes the Bride’s flesh even more radiant and shocking. Whereas Duchamp’s Brides are all sleek machines and the head of Etant Donne is hidden from us, Bettineschi’s Child Bride presents herself directly to be seen and desired. In Bettineschi’s telling, the Bride arrives at a state of awareness where she is both exposed and controls the gaze. “She is an object and subject of beauty. She looks at herself and is looked at.” She acknowledges and controls us and before her we become mere Chocolate Grinders, seduced to meaning on her terms. In other installations the abstract works literally radiate. Bettineschi’s tondi, like pure halos of heaven, give off pulsing harmonic colors. Yet her roundels are not psychedelic like Peter Sedgley’s or comic like Ugo Rondinone’s. This voyage lacks rigid earthly location. Radiance is neither here nor there, it transcends location. Bettineschi’s orbs are situated between the object and the viewer in a way mere paintings do not.  These spheres and planes seemingly meander off the wall into our own space. There is a nonlinear core, a spine of sighs that ties the art together. It is the invisible language to be seen. Not literal, dealing logically or illogically from point to point, they map a sense of consciousness. They are neither A nor Alpha, neither zero nor zed, but the holy spirit of being, the arcane poetry that we lost when we grasped the names of things. This is alchemy; neither quackery or magic but faithful and mystical.
Just as Kant felt that beauty could not be functional, Bettineschi strives (without striving) to arrive at an epiphanic visionary state. Starting with rather mundane observations and gathering visual materials as note taking, she engages the images, manipulating them into glory. Her work is not didactically theoretical, on the contrary, it attains the state of irrational, primitive, oneiric brilliance. Sol Lewitt once wrote that conceptual artists were mystics who leap to conclusions that logic could not reach.  Although not a conceptualist, in a singular way, Bettineschi is a mystic.

Color, light, shape. These are the three fundamental elements of any form of visual art. The skilled combination of the three is what produces the works of art we have come to know and love. Art objects make our lives more livable, pleasant, engaging, and fun by taking colors, lights and shapes out of our daily experiences and transforming them into something else.  Mariella Bettineschi’s relationship to each of these three elements is particularly stimulating because, while making an original synthesis out of them, she seems to have undertaken an original research itinerary for each.
Colors play a unique role in Bettineschi’s artistic journey. Her Spheres are a particularly illuminating example of her research:  the vivid colors inside the circles form concentric rings of different chromatic intensities with blurred, trembling borders that create the illusion of movement even while they stay still (in the original installation they could also move!).  These fantasmagorical enormous pupils seem to stare at us like many one-eyed cyclops. The selection of the colors is psychedelic; most of them seem not to exist in nature and appear as the result of an elaborate, artificial process that exalts and transforms their original and archetypal hues.  They might also resemble a quartz stone that, when sliced, lets us access the secret and intricate world within but it is, once again, nature perfected by the artist’s intervention…. Instead of the irregular, bumpy shape of the stone, Bettineschi creates perfect circles in which the inner, whimsical veins of the stone, become concentric circles and the colors are nothing but an exaggerated, amplified and, ultimately, idealized palette.
Light can make something visible or it can stand alone as the object and the subject of an artwork.  Light is definitely the protagonist of Bettineschi’s artistic productions. Bettineschi uses light, plays with light and ultimately re-creates light in her work.  Especially in her back-illuminated displays, the role of light is emphasized by a kaleidoscope of images that range from volcanic like explosions to science-fiction galaxies, to more recognizable patterns. But what they have in common is the ease with which the artist seems to bend and tame the most unruly element.  Bettineschi creates the illusion that these mostly computer generated high-tech images are the result of her hands-on manipulation of light as if it were the most malleable material.
Shapes are also part of the artistic and intellectual reflection of Bettineschi, though it is hard to separate them from color and light, since the shapes she creates are almost always the result of her encounter with colors and light.  Even her “officially” black and white works, in fact, carry with them a vast palette of all the shades of gray that make them colorful. Nature seems to be the great inspiration of Bettineschi’s shapes, despite the synthetic quality of her colors and light.  From the infinitely small (such as drops of water on a smooth surface) to the infinitely big (such as stars of the Milky Way), Bettineschi draws her inspiration from the primordial shapes of nature that, consistent with her style, she captures and transforms.
As Director of Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at New York Unviversity, I am glad to present to the refined art public of New York City, Mariella Bettineschi, an artist who is so deeply Italian and at the same time so truly involved in the international art discourse. I am sure her serious work of artistic research will be appreciated as an original contribution to the lively artistic life of the city that we call home.

While finding a need already in his/her work, the artist still seeks the appreciatìon of others, whatever hìs/her
recognition in the art world. When this need is met by public institutions, the question becomes even more complex.
One answer I have given is that everything makes sense if the work of an artist finds its own space in the world. This
can certainly be said of Mariella Bettineschi's work.
The adolescent girl sets off on her voyage into Duchamp's visionary world of the "Bride Stripped Bare by her
Bachelors".
Surrounded and contaminated by this aura of mystery and fantasy, she represents the initiation into "vision".
As fragile rotating mirrors dematerialize her body, eliminating its physical presence, the adolescent girl begins her
journey in time and space.
Naked, she enters the winged mythological world of Olympus, Mercury and Apollo...
The mythological world becomes reality in the a spaceship, where a fetus (cosmic egg) comes from space to bring
knowledge.
Duchamp's Large Glass appears and becomes the modern and contemporary means of vision.
It is the glass of knowledge and exploration of both the past and the future; through it, we learn to see art without
time or space.

The complex task of describing the history of an artist’s work and the research behind it not only involves retracing its development over time and its critical fortunes. Critical analysis inevitably tends to place the work in a historical context before referring to aesthetic aspects.
What I intend to do here is describe the initial phase of Mariella Bettineschi’s work (with thanks to Sara Meda, who helped me establish a certain order). In order to give a basic outline of her work, I will point out some of her most interesting developments by highlighting the coordinates of her artistic journey and the theme running through it.
Mariella Bettineschi is a versatile artist with a sound academic grounding. Her conceptual background has led her to explore different relationships with the surrounding reality using a variety of methods and materials. Her work observes generative and relational aspects and looks into the compositional links between painting, sculpture and, architecture, installation, photography and computer art. Her research develops in an intense spatial dimension and her work is very site specific.
The underlying theme of her work is strictly related to the concept of form and its representation. “The only thing that counts in art is form, as forms are conveyers of meaning. Form projects meaning”, writes the artist. Her work follows in the wake of Italian tradition and its classical antiquity, where art is more than just a manual and mechanical activity, but a way of thinking, a constructive logic, a consciousness expressed through action, and a philosophy that shapes the city with the endless creativity of the imagination.
The artist defines herself as a wanderer and sees history as “not so much a linear, consequential succession of events, but a structure made up of a series of elements that interrelate on different levels. A novelty is therefore not just the effect of what preceded it but the most recent configuration of this structure of elements seen from a certain viewpoint”. The work of art is inspired from her journey through this new configuration of elements. The immersion in this sea of elements, following an initial emotional current, generates a sense of disorientation and loss. But as the artist herself points out, this journey becomes an awareness of oneself, of the world and particularly “of what has not been said”. It is therefore a deeply identity-based research. Her method is to use the categories of our age, its resources and its technologies, and to draw on a common language for expressing different things.
Between the seventies and eighties, this relationship with the real is physically expressed through marks in a landscape, letters of a new alphabet that gradually takes shape. In Tracce sul letto del fiume and Architettura ai margini del bosco,natural elements change their usual position, giving space a new meaning, while organic materials like feathers, cotton, gauze and silk create new territories like De imaginationis loco. 1983 marks the creation of Erme, natural elements enclosed in black painted glass showcases. Bettineschi both highlights them by drawing them out of their context while keeping them hidden. “Negation, explosion, negation. Negation of the world. Vitality of the negative. Herms. Then the world explodes again, as a gesture and numerical sign.” The artist conceives Erme as negation for recovery, and for an awareness of the world. This world is observed from privileged positions like rocks, mountains, caves, or Avvistamenti, shreds of black sky glimmering with an unexpected glow, places of contemplation where eternity is perceived. This journey of awareness leads to Tesori, fragments of the real which seek unity. Material mutates, loses its identity and transforms into another material: paper becomes metal and morphs into the third dimension and a visionary state, while gold conveys arcane poetry. Mariella Bettineschi speaks of “leaving traps” where she can capture the real and reveal it in a fragment.
Towards the end of the eighties, the organic element disappears and this relationship with the real becomes even more interior. Light, jagged forms disappear, and sharp, succinct shapes enter space as sculptural forms. Dondoli, Sestante, Armata, Abbraccio, Slitta are objects and gestures of affection, yet their appearance and substance are unnatural. All attributes are stripped down to the essence, leaving distinct, meaningful geometrical elements, as clean and distinct as white marble or iron. Racconto impossibile and Stato sapienziale represent another phase where Bettineschi introduces the symbolic element as mediation in the path of awareness. Letters are strewn like a story without an apparent meaning; an orb or a perfect figure suggests wisdom that comprehends all.
Blau and Grande giallo introduce hidden monochrome planes, while Spazio sigillato, Impossibile a dirsi and Orizzonte have sleek surfaces with scratches, cuts or holes. In works like Quando la notte tende le sue trame or Artigli, elements seem to jump out of the surface, becoming the very essence of the piece.
Bettineschi contemplates art’s evolution (from monochromy to Fontana’s slashes) to recreate walls that enclose and yet open a new dimension. Signs made by graffiti and strange juxtapositions are the materialization of a state of mind and even a connotation or an allusion. Achille Bonito Oliva speaks of “the total theatre of painting”, i.e. the place of communication.
1992 marks an important turning point with Paesaggio in nero, Sii plurale come l’universo and Paesaggio plurale.
A huge black X and another huge black V stand in the exhibition room in Serrone della Villa Reale di Monza, dominated by twelve crosses on a kind of planetarium modeled with acid. Paesaggio in nero invades the surrounding space with a powerful message and recreates a new reality. The cross, as a dramatic element, covers the world and sinks into the earth, forming a kind of barrier or even an intersection, a crossroads, or the unknown; while the V represents the ultimate opening, an outburst, and a sense of tension. Substance is no longer an imitation and conveys a powerful and distinct message. Paolo Biscottini remarks on the distance of the work from informal or conceptual phenomena, especially in its purpose and its relationship with space.
At the Gariboldi Gallery in Milan, dozens of black circular shapes invade the environment, strewn in a seemingly random fashion. The theme of Sii plurale come l’universo is the world, which is perceived in a fragment yet seeks a unitary vision that is inevitably multiple. The same idea is expressed in a different manner in Paesaggio plurale, installed in the deconsecrated Church of Maddalena in Bergamo. This installation is situated a frescoed interior, originally a holy setting but now used as a gymnasium. A series of colored carriages links these two realities, suggesting a new interpretation.
In the years that follow, Bettineschi elaborates on past themes and introduces new experiences.
Plurality is expressed through the multiplication of circular elements: PVC discs in Pillole leggere, larger forms in Girotondo, an explicit declaration in Je suis l’outre or new connotations in Mulino di Amleto. This piece of work is part of the Textile Produkte project devised by Bettineschi and Fausto Radici (with the curator Amnon Barzel). The setting of this project is an industrial space (still working), where various artists are asked to express themselves in response to the stimulus of this working environment. “I am no longer able to draw from nature, and culture has become barren and impoverished. The only environment charged with energy is the workplace”, says the sculptor. This is a change from her earlier work, which uses nature as the source of material.
The theme of monochrome surfaces continues in Carro celeste, a shiny steel and fiberglass sculpture, and on a much larger scale in the fresco La mia stella. Luminoso echoes this theme and introduces Bettineschi’s exploration of light, which is elaborated further later on. In this piece of work, neon lights illuminate large rectangles with glowing color reminiscent of Dan Flavin.
These striking, macroscopic works are contrasted with the simple Appunti. These images are conceived from a sheet of paper and take shape in space as small sculptures, often echoed in photographic work.
Two strictly correlated themes can be found in the Cinte murarie and Abiti series in a touring exhibition held in 1997. These two themes are only apparently distant, as the wall drawings look very much like clothes. The artist also conceives a garment like a fortress, a defense, and seems to refer to the etymological origins of “habit” and “inhabit”. As Hans Gercke once said, clothing is “a primordial and elementary form of architecture”. These works emerge from a sudden revelation during Bettineschi’s constant and lengthy collection of connotations and materials. This is why a revelatory image stands out among these fragments. Perhaps it is this revelatory talent that transforms clothes into Angeli.
The Architetture series is composed of simple white cardboard boxes which enclose images of meaning on a kind of plinth. The structure is repeated yet the contained form mutates, like variations of a motif that gradually unfolds.
Bettineschi’s study of light is evident in the exhibition La vestizione della sposa held at  in Heidelberger Kunstverein in Heidelberg and then in different venues and Darmstad in 1999. Bettineschi takes 4,000 slides over a period of three years, mainly over Christmas time. These images are manipulated on the computer or used for exploring the possibilities of modeling in space. The five large images printed on glass represent the origin of the exhibition – its title refers to Duchamp - yet maintain a certain distance from his work. As Gercke points out, the process of decontextualizing the commonplace and transforming it into an art form is typical of Duchamp, yet Bettineschi refers back to the lost context through a poetical pattern. Mariella Bettineschi speaks of “leaving traps around in the hope of capturing something. This is a real need … the elusiveness of things, the sensation that everything is so complex it forces the artist to snatch fragments of the real and to hold them for a moment and contemplate them”. This need is reflected in works like Apparizione, Abbaglio, Orfeo and Acqua santa, video installations, screen prints and prints on plexiglas. These suggest the revealing power of light, which becomes the creator of images in the Visori di luce series, printed on duratrans and lightboxes.
This is the period when the artist begins to experiment with light and its endless potential. The themes behind the three series of images - Acquatico, Appropriazione indebita and Architetture – at first seem very distant. However, the first two in particular grasp an aspect and a moment of reality and transform it by taking it out of its flow through lighting effects. Distinguishable figures mutate through digital distortion or unnatural coloring.In 2001 and 2002, Mariella Bettineschi uses the camera for documenting two settings and their events. She observes a certain detail that seems to narrate everything and suggest an atmosphere, a life. The Ritratti series is taken in Bergamo University as an extraordinary event beginning with my university course and becoming “the portrait of the same university”, like in N.Y.C. Groundzero. While the first series reveals a greater focus on the image, the second series is simplified even more through a more intense expressiveness. It draws the eye in, isolating objects, heads and telling gestures. Bettineschi depicts the human figure in Domino, made for the 49th XLIX Venice Biennial. During the opening, Mariella Bettineschi grasps moments by capturing the gaze of viewers as they look at the exhibits. As Giovanna Brambilla Ranise points out, the conceptual nucleus is the gaze of the person contemplating the work of the artist, who in turn observes the viewers through her lens. Bettineschi takes photos and then reworks and juxtaposes them according to two criteria: one based on rhythm, on compositional and formal values, and on the effects of light and shade, and the other suggested by the echoed meaning drawn from the images.
2003 marks the beginning of Disegno interno, a term taken from Federico Zuccari, who picks up on Vasari’s theory in the 1600 and distinguishes between “inner drawing” (its conception) and “outer drawing” (the material). Mariella Bettineschi reverses the traditional process by tracing from the work to its essence, questioning how the image is born. Laura Jane Culpan refers to “the created skeleton”, the “DNA” , “the essence” of the images. These are black and white marks and contours which take on their full dimension of thought, dream and inner image when juxtaposed with photographs of people with their eyes closed. A mental and visual relationship is generated between man and figure: all that is internal is externalized, creating its own reality, while at the same time, man lives “inside a drawing” (Dentro un disegno). Bettineschi also creates digital images blazing with a luminous dynamism through color variations and the alternation of light and shade. The figure loses distinct contours and constantly mutates in works like Esplosione, Fuga and Gelo.
Bettineschi’s study of movement through light and color is evident in Teoria delle sfere, where colored orbs printed on plexiglas are mounted slightly away from the wall, creating a constant alternation between two- and three-dimensionality. This perfect geometrical form is inspired from the ancient Greek theories of the universe, which saw everything governed by a system of rotating orbs. This is closely related to the Platonic concept of the ideal universe. There is a total detachment from reality in Bettineschi’s work, and the computer becomes the source of material as well as an artistic tool.
Bettineschi recreates a series of images of planets and stars explored by Astronavi (spaceships), which become the vehicle of knowledge. Bettineschi’s tireless research retraces from the detail to the universal, from past to future, from darkness to light, from exterior to interior, from negation to participation, from constraint to release, from veiling to unveiling, and from the material to the spiritual. Through this constant play of contrasts, Bettineschi offers an extraordinary interpretation of the dynamics of life and all its complex mutual relationships. Through this unceasing process, that sought-after yet fleeting unity seems like a breath, which makes us question our identity; an identity that is ever-changing, the result of a continuous process of giving and receiving, the core of a relationship, and the recognition of belonging.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, shadow has been associated with life and art since their very beginning, just as shadow, beyond a shadow of a doubt, has always been an integral part of Bettineschi’s work. In life, shadow is a fleeting but ever-present darkness, the virtuality of the consistency of reality, an intangible blackness and the antithesis of the whiteness of light, the negative of being and yet the very essence of existence here and now. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, shadow is the image without representing the present - an eclipse of life itself. Scrutinized and explored by mankind ever since the beginning of time, shadow is a source of occupation and preoccupation in science, religion and art – the three disciplines that contend over the significance of shadow more than any other, whether for optical, symbolic or spiritual reasons.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, a shadow cast from the sovereignty of the universe, from behind a street corner, or even from the unknown realms of the afterlife, has always inspired mystery and discovery in civilization which is destined to privilege sight and attain the triumphs of vision. Perhaps this is why art has given it such a central role and even formulated a theory of shade, and indeed shade plays a pivotal role in Bettineschi’s work.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, shadow marks the boundary between the tangible and the intangible - it begins at the point where a body meeting the end of light begins or ends. These three elements (shadow, body and light) hover between two- and three-dimensionality, and between painting and sculpture - one of art’s most ancient enigmas.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, one interesting difference is the shadow made by a translucent or even a transparent body. In this case, light does not end where it meets the body and where the shadow begins; rather, it passes through it, and the boundaries between light, body and shade become ephemeral, penetrating each other and blending together. In fact a shadow in a drawing or a painting is often blurred and indistinct. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Mariella Bettineschi is aware of this ancient enigma – for years she has used translucent material like tracing paper, still used by architects even since the advent of the computer, or the transparency of glass.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the reason why she uses these two elements is because her work is closer to sculpture than painting.
Bettineschi uses these materials for painting, drawing, etching or screen-printing to create distinct and indistinct images. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is her way of producing signs and images that are as ephemeral as contemporary life. Yet what is most striking is the way they are often resting on a base on the ground and leaning against the wall, as if they are presented as “sculptures” or “installations” rather than paintings, drawings or photographs. Her work is therefore determined not only by what is represented, but also by the microspace and the actual shadow it creates. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Bettineschi creates a relationship between two- and three dimensionality, between representation and presentation, between fiction and reality, between… and ….
As a way of shedding light on the darkness, the work exhibited at GAMeC is the synthesis of what I have just said. It is basically a “sculpture/installation”, composed of a narrow wooden base fitted with panes of glass etched with drawings, and placed in a staggered arrangement to break the linearity of space and the image.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Bettineschi’s way of using glass and the familiarity of her etched images distinctly recall the work of Duchamp, as many have pointed out. However, Duchamp used glass and images to negate art, while Bettineschi uses them to proclaim it, firstly because she draws from tradition, and secondly because the drawings on glass are what she calls “internal drawings”. Her  give them a sense of structure.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, painting, drawing, sculpture and installation converge with each other and the surrounding space; and by creating movement of light and shadow, Bettineschi makes space the very essence of her work.

Mariella Bettineschi has undertaken an intelligent and rigorous voyage to some American and Italian cultural institutions which have decided to exhibit her work.
Her work draws inspiration from life, history, culture and art. It is a process of accumulation, and what counts is not so much the means of expression but the outcome, which is free and unconfined yet also rigorous and exacting. In following her passions, Mariella Bettineschi does not fall back on her rich artistic background. She conveys a conscious relationship with technology and values its extraordinary potential. In favoring technological progress, which can so often undermine the foundations of human experience, is one of the ways Mariella Bettineschi perceives contemporary life. Her technical mastery – in painting, photography and video – opens unexpected perspectives which generate and nourish a constantly evolving poetical theme.
Bettineschi goes against the idea of overstating imagery and fuels a slowly evolving process which refuses to stabilize due to the constant stimulus it is confronted with. This relationship with technology forces us to constantly re-examine the categories and criteria we use to organize our memory and awareness. Perceiving changes in the world of art through immediate perceptions and intuitions often means questioning our path and taking a different direction which filters the complexities of various problems. This instinct is fuelled by a deep involvement in the cultural dimension in which we are faced with these objects of reflection. The wealth of the Mariella Bettineschi’s work poses fascinating questions which anticipate future developments of contemporary language.
Mariella Bettineschi’s poetry draws from and transforms a visionary view of daily life. She maintains a conscious creative bond with reality. Her art is unrhetorical –the dilemma of creation is preceded by rigorous mental analysis, in the knowledge that each and every one of us is the outcome of past experiences which continue to live inside us.
Bettineschi investigates issues with a freedom of association that spans all disciplines and cultures; she responds to new questions using all of art’s resources; she conveys the power of transformation and the wealth of this metamorphosis; she shows emotional restraint and a persistent sense of the future. These are all the components that transform Bettineschi’s work into a unique resource, rather, a source of reflection that balances rationality and imagination. We see our age through the eyes of artists: “recognizing is understanding”, as Ernst H. Gombrich once said. Artists cultivate the ability to restore links between events, so often rid of any connections, and to develop new streams of thought.
Mariella Bettineschi’s work follows this philosophy. As she explores the open sea of contemporary culture, she insists on cultivating a deep and profound interest in one of man’s most mysterious activities: drawing.
Bettineschi goes beyond her artistic training and explores the timeless cultural interest of this core of communication. Despite its apparent immediacy, drawing links different cognitive systems - from perception, memory and action to the interfaces between them.
Mariella Bettineschi’s approach to this activity, which is as old as the world itself, uses new technology. Rather than undervaluing its potential, she confirms a boundless vitality which not even the most recent theories are able to explain. As children, we can draw spontaneously, yet as we grow up we lose this skill and have to learn it all over again. Drawing covers all cultures and is usually understood automatically without needing a specific education. The depth and density of this means of expression contemplates the fact that not everything that is visible can be drawn, and gives knowledge and awareness a unique perspective. It takes our mind on the great adventure of vision: works of art live on an uncontainable force which they accumulate and convey to the viewer.
I sincerely hope that Mariella Bettineschi is able to maintain the freshness, curiosity and conviction that distinguish her unique investigation of the world through art.
I have often wondered about the opportunity of an artist exhibiting his/her work in the city in which he/she lives and works, and have always had some doubts. It is, of course, a positive thing to exhibit one’s work: the public eye is fundamental for art in all its forms. Establishing a relationship with others is a primary need of any artist. While finding a need already in his/her work, the artist still seeks the appreciation of others, whatever his/her recognition in the art world. When this need is met by public institutions, the question becomes even more complex. One answer I have given is that everything makes sense if the work of an artist finds its own space in the world. This can certainly be said of Mariella Bettineschi’s work.

L’artista italiana Mariella Bettineschi ha attualmente allestito le sue prime mostre negli Stati Uniti. In ognuna è presente una diversa parte del suo attuale lavoro ed ogni mostra è realizzata per il luogo che la ospita, anche se alcuni elementi potrebbero essere condivisi anche con altri spazi. Bettineschi dichiara “il mio interesse si concentra sul luogo della mostra e per me è molto importante visitare lo spazio prima di allestirvi il mio lavoro”.
Il lavoro di Bettineschi deriva dall’Arte Povera degli anni sessanta. In un primo momento sembrerebbe strano guardando alla lucentezza del materiale da lei utilizzato. La generazione dell’Arte Povera era costituita da artisti informali che si dilettavano con detriti e creavano lirici assemblaggi con materiale grossolano. Il lavoro era concreto, anti o non industriale, grezzo e impoverito. Trasformavano in poesia macerie e stracci, neon e piombo scadenti sparpagliati a caso o posizionati sul luogo. Criticavano con opinioni radicali l’imperialismo, il capitalismo e la posizione delle istituzioni. Ti facevano vedere gli “oggetti” e la realtà in un modo nuovo.
Anche Bettineschi fa lo stesso. Ogni installazione, sia al di fuori o all’interno di un museo, è così sintetica che l’osservatore diventa impercettibilmente consapevole della guida dell’artista. Quando si guarda alle sue origini, sono tanto dirette quanto quelle della precedente generazione. Sebbene lei ora usi la fotografia digitale, le stampanti e la manipolazione al computer, questa tecnologia non è estranea alla comprensione della maggior parte dei visitatori; nelle attività commerciali si utilizzano gli stessi strumenti quotidianamente. Questa tecnologia è abbastanza comune oggigiorno. E’ la natura delle immagini, non il modo di rappresentazione, che è diverso.
Un artista è un alchimista. Bettineschi filtra memorie, storie, sabbia e limo nelle maglie della mente e tesse fili d’oro. Per far questo il vero artista non ha bisogno di un telaio o di una pietra filosofale; sibilla lei stessa è il catalizzatore che tesse le cose viste in visioni, i suoni in cori, gli eventi in storie epiche. Sebbene la purezza del cuore significhi desiderare un’unica cosa, ci sono molti tipi di santi, ognuno con un percorso diverso, ognuno con le sue gesta straordinarie, i suoi tormenti e i suoi miracoli. Alcuni artisti sono meteore, brillano in modo spettacolare e poi svaniscono. Altri artisti crescono più lentamente, incorporando le loro esperienze come le concrezioni di una conchiglia per acquisire spessore. Le sue opere sono più della somma delle singole parti.
Presso la Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery della University of the Arts, Bettineschi presenta uno spazio teatrale con riferimenti a Marcel Duchamp. Se siamo sorpresi che un’artista tenti di portare carbone a Newcastle, portare Duchamp a Philadelphia, dobbiamo ricordare che quest’ultimo era un maestro dei tre continenti e che il gallerista italiano Arturo Schwarz ha molto a che fare con la rinascita dell’interesse per Duchamp. Bettineschi dice di lasciare trappole per l’osservatore e di nuovo si pensa al Trebuchet (1917) di Duchamp. Il lavoro di Duchamp era erotico (come lo è la vita) e pregnante e metaforico. Anche lui si occupava di cambiamenti alchemici, transizioni e trasformazioni degli stati d’essere. Il suo lavoro, come quello di Bettineschi, era sia astratto che figurativo.
Bettineschi parla dei disegni interni delle cose. Quel disegno interno è il nucleo dell’essenza di ogni cosa. Lei ci chiede quali e dove siano i confini tra la sfera pubblica e quella privata. I primi disegni di Bettineschi: ferite e stimmate tagliate nel tessuto, nei libri, e nella carta, invece di diventare concreti e tangibili sono diventati stranamente automatizzati, ultraterreni, adimensionali. Come le memorie, questi segni, procedono dal mondo ma esistono in un luogo altro. Come con Infra-mince di Duchamp, l’ultra sottile, Bettineschi ci porta negli spazi tra le cose, dalla seconda alla quarta dimensione e, da qui, oltre. Il loro particolare splendore, che include polvere meteoritica, è celestiale. “L’immaterialità non ci impedisce di costruire un senso”.
L’installazione include NUMERO (mettere quante!!!!) immagini stampate su vetro. L’artista usa vetro dipinto o stampato da oltre 20 anni. Il vetro è utilizzato come una vetrina, un reliquiario, un piedistallo, una lastra, una sfera perfetta, una cosa presente e non presente. E’ trasparente al processo tuttavia spettacolarmente vitreo, simile a una gemma. Per natura, la sua superficie planare è liscia, classica. Come i “reverse paintings” (dipinti eseguiti su lastre di vetro) o manoscritti miniati, il vetro vernicia le immagini, rendendo i loro colori brillanti. Bettineschi è interessata a questa luminosità, quest’aura carica di elettricità delle cose. Utilizzando il vetro come supporto, le immagini fluttuano nello spazio. L’essere trasparente permette ai segni, al loro luogo e all’osservatore di interagire in modo reale. Come trasparenze le immagini sono luminose come ali di angeli, sono filamenti o matasse di linguaggio da legare e intrecciare in una poesia. Alcune immagini rimangono aderenti alla loro origine, vediamo gocce di acqua, edifici, ecc. Altre ci portano lontano: ingranaggi e ruote dentate, tacche e geroglifici come le schede perforate dei computer, frecce e fori delle serrature. Alcune immagini rimangono chiare, I Testimoni Oculisti ti impone di focalizzare l’immagine, dal momento che l’acutezza ha bisogno di un obiettivo ottico. Sebbene alcuni oggetti rimangano concretamente reali, altri si mimetizzano nel teatro dell’irreale. La ruota di Duchamp è capovolta in diagonale in un apparato come quelli di Tatlin. Altri sono nebulosi come un fotogramma di Adam Fuss. L’artista quindi ci conduce in un viaggio metaforico attraverso il tempo e lo spazio; utilizza “il viaggio” come una metafora per trasportare l’osservatore. Alcuni archi sono enormi: uno disegna il passaggio della Luna; Planetario 1 indica una mappa celeste pre-galileiana (la terra è situata al centro) di orbite planetarie tra i segni dello zodiaco. Disegni 17 traccia i viaggi degli esploratori della Terra come Magellano e Colombo. Disegni II, un disco con lettere enigmatiche intorno al perimetro, rivela se stesso come un semplice insieme di codici di un aeroporto internazionale. In un'altra fotografia mimetizzata di uno spazio industriale con lettere al contrario si legge con difficoltà “Sanomatalo”. Agli occhi innocenti degli Americani non abituati a viaggiare nel mondo è un non sense, per gli Europei è il nome di un nuovo edificio finlandese.
L’insieme delle tracce di pensiero si collegano come parole in una frase, creando un’unità. Un palinsesto digitale, una concatenazione di segni, trasporta poeticamente da un’immagine all’altra. Bettineschi afferma “Pur lavorando su dei frammenti io cerco comunque di tenere insieme tutti questi frammenti, come un filo che tiene insieme le perle di una collana. […] La mia maniera di ragionare mi porta a raccogliere in continuazione delle cose intorno a me, anche se non hanno senso tra di loro e magari sono in contraddizione. Ma io considero questi elementi come delle piccole trappole per cogliere il reale, per cercare di capire, di costruire un senso delle cose”. L’intero corpus delle sue opere segue questa pratica; il lavoro si colloca nella tradizione dell’arte dell’installazione. Le parti non sono disposte a caso o arbitrariamente; abbondano seguendo una sintassi personale e tuttavia formale.
Eppure si è spesso trasportati da eventi casuali così come da quelli di portata più grave. Considerate l’impatto dello sguardo fugace di una bella ragazza dal finestrino di un treno in movimento; Duchamp si innamorò immediatamente di questa ragazza, fissando il volto di lei nella sua memoria. Questo evento casuale divenne a sua volta lo stimolo per il dipinto Dulcinea (1911).
Le penultime due immagini alla fine della serie esposta sono di una bella donna (in italiano nel testo). Sfacciatamente tuttavia etericamente nuda, è l’incarnazione inafferrabile di Nostra Signora del Vetro, piuttosto che la sposa meccanica di Duchamp. La Madonna della Bettineschi è del nostro tempo, del ventunesimo secolo, non del Cubo-futurismo di quest’ultimo. Il fatto che tutte le immagini della Sposa siano state create fortemente grafiche e monocromatiche così come l’installazione stessa, rende la carne della Sposa ancora più luminosa e scioccante. Mentre le spose di Duchamp sono tutte macchinari lisci e la testa di Etant Donne è nascosta a noi, la Sposa Bambina di Bettineschi si presenta direttamente per essere vista e desiderata. Nel racconto dell’artista, la Sposa giunge ad uno stato di consapevolezza dove è sì esposta allo sguardo, ma anche in grado di controllarlo. “Lei è oggetto e soggetto di bellezza. Si guarda ed è guardata”. Lei ci conosce e ci controlla e davanti a lei diventiamo meri Macinatrici di Cioccolato, sedotti al significato secondo le sue condizioni. Nelle altre installazioni le opere astratte letteralmente irradiano. I tondi di Bettineschi, come pure aureole, emettono pulsanti colori armonici. Tuttavia i suoi tondi non sono psichedelici come quelli di Peter Sedgley o comici come quelli di Ugo Rondinone. Questo viaggio manca della rigida collocazione terrena. La radiosità non è né in questo posto né in un altro, trascende il luogo. Le sfere di Bettineschi sono posizionate tra l’oggetto e l’osservatore in un modo che i semplici dipinti non rendono. Queste sfere e piani sono apparentemente disseminati sulla parete nel nostro spazio. E’ un nucleo non lineare, una serie di respiri che legano l’arte insieme. E’ un linguaggio invisibile da vedere. Creano una mappa di conoscenza, non letterale, di comportamenti logici o illogici da un punto all’altro. Non sono A né Alfa, né zero né zeta, ma il sacro spirito dell’essere, l’arcana poesia che abbiamo perso quando abbiamo acquisito i nomi delle cose. Questa è alchimia; non fasulla nè magica, ma fedele e mistica.
Proprio come Kant sentiva che la bellezza non avrebbe potuto essere funzionale, Bettineschi si impegna (senza sforzo) a raggiungere uno stato di visione epifanica. Partendo da osservazioni piuttosto terrene e raccogliendo materiali visivi come prendendo appunti, si dedica alle immagini, manipolandole verso lo splendore. Il suo lavoro non è didatticamente teoretico, al contrario, raggiunge uno stato di irrazionale, primitiva, onirica vividezza. Sol Lewitt una volta scrisse che gli artisti concettuali erano mistici che arrivavano a conclusioni che la logica non poteva raggiungere. Sebbene non sia concettuale, in uno strano modo, Bettineschi è un’artista mistica.

E' l'adolescente che inizia il suo viaggio.....
Si immerge nell'immaginario duchampiano della sposa messa a nudo dai suoi scapoli e si fa contaminare ed avvolgere dal forte immaginario che trasmette l'opera.
I fragili specchi rotanti smaterializzano il suo corpo.
Annullando la sua presenza fisica, inizia un viaggio nel tempo e nello spazio.
Nuda, incontra la mitologia: Mercurio, Apollo, l'Olimpo, il mondo mitologico alato.
Mercurio è ora il mondo mitologico reale, concreto dell'astronave.
Nell'astronave si nebulizza la presenza di un feto (uovo cosmico) che è venuto dallo spazio a trasmettere la
conoscenza.
II grande vetro duchampiano appare e diventa il mezzo contemporaneo e sempre attuale del vedere.
Il vetro della conoscenza, dell'esplorazione, dell'ieri e del domani, per imparare a vedere, senza tempo e senza spazio, l'arte.

La storia  di un lavoro artistico e della ricerca che lo supporta è cosa complicata da tracciare non solo nella sua ricostruzione temporale evolutiva, nella fortuna critica che la individua, ma nel fatto che un simile esercizio tende inesorabilmente a trasferire il livello della critica al livello della storia per poi tentare di condurlo al piano dell’estetica.
Ora quello che qui mi ripropongo è di provare a tracciare, ringraziando Sara Meda che mi ha aiutato a ordinarlo, un primo percorso del lavoro artistico di Mariella Bettineschi rilevando i passaggi che mi paiono interessanti per permettere, innanzi tutto a chi legge, di avere a disposizione un  canovaccio sintetico della sua  ricerca,  cominciando ad evidenziare le coordinate che la percorrono e il filo rosso che la conduce.
Mariella Bettineschi è un’artista versatile, dalla solida formazione accademica. Cresciuta in ambito concettuale, ha sondato nelle sue opere, attraverso modi e materiali diversi, le possibili relazioni con la realtà circostante rivelandone aspetti generativi e relazionali e soprattutto indagando su quei nessi costitutivi che permettono di passare dalla pittura alla scultura, all’architettura. La sua è una ricerca che avviene dentro una sentita dimensione spaziale: le opere non esistono se non in un rapporto specifico con l’ambiente.
Si potrebbe dire che il filo conduttore della sua ricerca è strettamente legato al problema della forma e della sua rappresentazione “in arte l’unica cosa che conta è la forma, o più esattamente, le forme sono le emittenti dei significati. La forma proietta senso” scrive l’artista. Una ricerca che si innesta nel solco della tradizione italiana e della sua classicità, là dove l’arte è, prima ancora che attività manuale e meccanica, forma del pensiero, logica costruttiva, conoscenza che si esprime nel fare, pensiero che dà forma alla città nella sua più vasta possibilità di  creazione immaginativa.
Per l’artista, che si percepisce per natura nomade, la storia può essere considerata “non tanto come una successione lineare, consequenziale di avvenimenti, ma come una struttura costituita da diversi elementi in inter-relazione a più livelli. Il nuovo non è quindi solo l’effetto di ciò che lo precede ma è l’ultima configurazione che la struttura di elementi assume da uno dei punti di vista possibili”. L’attraversamento di questa nuova configurazione di elementi da  parte dell’artista fa scaturire l’opera. L’immergersi  in questo mare, sull’onda di una prima corrente affettiva, produce un disorientamento e una perdita, ma poi- sostiene l’artista- proprio per questa via  diventa conoscenza di sé, del mondo e soprattutto “del non detto”, è quindi una ricerca profondamente identitaria. Il suo metodo è quello di utilizzare le categorie del nostro tempo, i suoi mezzi, le sue nuove tecnologie,  di attingere a un  linguaggio comune per dire cose diverse.
A cavallo tra gli anni Settanta e Ottanta tale rapporto con il reale si esprime fisicamente con segni lasciati nel paesaggio, lettere di un nuovo alfabeto che andava costituendosi. Sono Tracce sul letto del fiume o Architettura ai margini del bosco,dove elementi naturali variano la loro posizione consueta risignificando lo spazio. Allo stesso tempo materiali organici, quali piume, cotone, garze, seta, costituiscono nuovi territori quali De imaginationis loco. Nel 1983 nascono le Erme, elementi naturali chiusi in bacheche di vetro dipinto di nero che l’artista evidenzia estrapolandoli dal contesto, ma nello stesso tempo nascondendoli. “Negazione, esplosione, negazione. Negare il mondo. Vitalità del negativo. Erme. Poi il mondo esplode di nuovo, come gesto e segno numero”. Così l’artista concepisce le Erme: una negazione per una riconquista, una conoscenza del mondo. Un mondo che va osservato da posizioni privilegiate: rocce, montagne, grotte …gli Avvistamenti, brani di cielo nero folgorati da un’improvvisa luminescenza, luoghi di contemplazione, da cui si percepisce l’eterno. Dal viaggio della conoscenza emergono Tesori, frammenti del reale che cercano un’unità. La materia si trasforma, perde la propria identità, si mimetizza in altra materia: la carta diviene metallo e sfonda nella terza dimensione per entrare in quella visionaria. È l’oro che riporta sensazioni arcane. Mariella Bettineschi afferma di “lasciare trappole” per catturare il reale che può svelarsi nel frammento.
Sul finire degli anni Ottanta sparisce l’elemento organico e il rapporto con il reale diviene sempre più mentale, interiore. Spariscono le forme frastagliate, leggere. Entrano nello spazio forme incisive ed essenziali: sono ormai forme scultoree. Dondoli, Sestante, Armata, Abbraccio, Slitta. Indicano oggetti, gesti d’affetto, ma l’aspetto e la materia non sono naturali. Ogni attributo viene scarnificato per esporre la sintesi, fatta di elementi geometrici puliti, rivelatori. Netti, come il marmo bianco o il ferro. Un passaggio ulteriore avviene in Racconto impossibile o in Stato sapienziale dove si inserisce l’elemento simbolico, mediazione nel cammino di conoscenza. Lettere sparse come un racconto, ma prive di un senso immediato; una sfera, figura perfetta, allude alla sapienza che tutto comprende.
Allo stesso tempo nascono piani monocromi, come Blau o Grande giallo, o superfici lisce su cui intervengono graffiature,  tagli, buchi, come in Spazio sigillato, Impossibile a dirsi, Orizzonte; a volte elementi escono da tali superfici divenendo il centro significativo dell’opera: si pensi a Quando la notte tende le sue trame, o Artigli.
L’artista medita sugli sviluppi dell’arte (i monocromi, i tagli di Fontana) per ricreare pareti che chiudono, ma contemporaneamente aprono a una nuova dimensione. Graffiti che rimangono come segni, accostamenti inconsueti sono la materializzazione di uno stato interiore e anche suggerimento, rimando. Achille Bonito Oliva parla di “teatro totale della pittura”, che è il luogo della comunicazione.
Nel 1992 si ha un momento particolarmente significativo in cui nascono Paesaggio in nero, Sii plurale come l’universo, Paesaggio plurale.
Nel Serrone della Villa Reale di Monza si stagliano enormi una X e una V nere e, su una sorta di planetario modellato dagli acidi, campeggiano dodici croci. È il Paesaggio in nero che entra nello spazio circostante con un messaggio forte, rifondatore di una realtà nuova. La croce come elemento drammatico che copre il mondo e si pianta nella terra, sorta di sbarramento, ma anche di incrocio, attraversamento, incognita, la V quale finale apertura, slancio, tensione. La materia non è più imitazione di altra materia, ma si pone pesante e decisa nel suo messaggio. Paolo Biscottini sottolinea la distanza dell’opera dai fenomeni informali o concettuali soprattutto nel fine e nel rapporto con lo spazio.
Alla Galleria Gariboldi di Milano decine di forme circolari nere invadono l’ambiente, disseminate in modo apparentemente casuale: il tema è il mondo, di cui non si percepisce più solamente un frammento, ma si tende a una visione unitaria che è inevitabilmente molteplice: Sii plurale come l’universo. La stessa idea trova una diversa declinazione in Paesaggio plurale allestito nella ex chiesa della Maddalena di Bergamo. Qui il lavoro dell’artista si inserisce in un edificio  affrescato e originalmente connotato da una destinazione sacra, oggi adibito a palestra. Una serie di carrelli colorati connette  queste due realtà proponendo una nuova chiave di lettura.
Negli anni seguenti l’artista sviluppa alcuni filoni già trattati e inserisce nuove esperienze.
La pluralità, espressa attraverso il moltiplicarsi di elementi circolari, assume la forma di dischi in pvc in Pillole leggere, grandi dimensioni in Girotondo, una dichiarazione esplicita in Je suis l’outre, nuove suggestioni nel Mulino di Amleto. Quest’opera, in particolare, nasce nell’ambito del progetto Textile Produkte, da un’idea della Bettineschi e di Fausto Radici (curatore Amnon Barzel) che coinvolgono altri artisti nello spazio della fabbrica  perchè possano esprimersi secondo gli stimoli qui ricevuti. “Io non so più attingere alla Natura, trovo saccheggiata e sfinita la cultura, l’unico luogo che sento carico di energia è il luogo di lavoro”, afferma la scultrice segnando una netta evoluzione dagli esordi, dove la natura forniva il materiale stesso dei suoi lavori.
Il tema delle superfici monocrome prosegue in Carro celeste, una lucida scultura in vetroresina e acciaio o nell’affresco La mia stella, riproponendosi su ampia scala. Assume diverse sollecitazioni in Luminoso, dove si inserisce la ricerca sulla luce che avrà sviluppi interessanti negli anni successivi. Qui grandi rettangoli assumono una colorazione abbagliante grazie all’uso del neon, che fa pensare a Dan Flavin.
Accanto a tali opere macroscopiche e di forte impatto si sviluppano semplici  Appunti, immagini che nascono dal foglio di carta e prendono forma nello spazio divenendo piccole sculture, spesso corredate di citazioni fotografiche.
Strettamente correlati, poi, sono la serie delle Cinte murarie e degli Abiti esposti in una mostra itinerante del 1997. L’accostamento tra i due temi risulta solo apparentemente lontano in quanto i disegni delle mura assomigliano molto a dei vestiti. L’artista, inoltre, concepisce l’abito come una fortezza, una difesa e sembra risalire all’origine etimologica che accomuna l’“abito” all’“abitare”, come ben fa notare Hans Gercke definendo l’abito “forma primordiale ed elementare dell’architettura”. Tali opere nascono dalla rivelazione che improvvisamente sorge durante la lunga e continua raccolta di suggestioni e materiali compiuta dalla Bettineschi, per cui tra i frammenti si distingue un’immagine rivelatrice. È forse questa capacità rivelatrice che permette ad alcuni vestiti di divenire Angeli.
Essenziali casette di cartone bianco compongono, invece, la serie delle Architetture che custodiscono su una sorta di piedistallo delle immagini di senso; si ripete la struttura, ma la forma contenuta assume aspetti differenti, quali variazioni di un discorso che si dipana.
Le ricerche sulla luce portano alla realizzazione nel 1999 della mostra La vestizione della sposa tenutasi a Heidelberg e Darmstad. Per tre anni la Bettineschi scatta 4.000 diapositive soprattutto durante il periodo natalizio. Queste divengono la materia su cui lavorare attraverso il computer o per scoprirne le possibilità plastiche nello spazio. La selezione di cinque immagini stampate su vetro in grande formato dà origine all’esposizione, il cui titolo si riferisce direttamente a Duchamp, ma ne afferma la distanza. Gercke fa notare che il procedimento di decontestualizzazione del quotidiano operante la trasformazione  in forma d’arte è duchampiano; sottolinea, però, che per la scultrice esiste, poi, una restituzione del contesto perduto attraverso un gioco poetico. Mariella Bettineschi confessa il suo intento di “lasciare delle trappole in giro sperando di catturare qualcosa. E’ un bisogno … d’inafferrabilità delle cose, la sensazione che tutto è così complesso da spingere l’artista a prendere alcuni pezzetti del reale per riuscire a fermarli un attimo e guardarli meglio”. È da questa esigenza che nascono lavori quali Apparizione, Abbaglio, Orfeo, Acqua santa, installazioni con video, serigrafie, stampe su plexiglas giocate sullo svelamento operato dalla luce, la quale diviene essa stessa creatrice di immagini nella serie dei Visori di luce, stampe su duratrans e lightbox.
In questi anni l’artista compie varie sperimentazioni sull’uso della luce indagandone le molteplici possibilità che danno origine a tre serie di immagini: Acquatico, Appropriazione indebita, Architetture. Le tematiche sono differenti, ma, soprattutto le prime due, intendono fermare un aspetto e un istante della realtà per trasformarlo, estrapolandolo dal suo fluire, attraverso effetti luminosi. Figure riconoscibili mutano per la distorsione digitale o per una colorazione innaturale.
Nel 2001 e nel 2002 utilizza la macchina fotografica per documentare due luoghi e gli avvenimenti che ospitano, con uno sguardo volto a mostrare quel particolare che narra il tutto, che suggerisce un’atmosfera, una vita. Così è per la serie di Ritratti scattati all’interno dell’Università degli studi di Bergamo  quale evento straordinario a partire da un mio corso universitario e divenuto “ritratto della stessa università” come , così è per N.Y.C. Groundzero. Se nella prima serie si nota un maggiore intervento sull’immagine, nella seconda si assiste ad una semplificazione in forza di un’espressività più intensa. La visione tende a ravvicinarsi isolando oggetti, teste, gesti narranti. Si assiste, inoltre, ad un ritorno alla figura umana, che diviene soggetto privilegiato del lavoro Domino, realizzato in occasione della 49° Biennale di Venezia. Durante l’inaugurazione Mariella Bettineschi cattura momenti cogliendo lo sguardo della gente diretto alle opere esposte. Come afferma Giovanna Brambilla Ranise, il nucleo concettuale è proprio lo sguardo: di chi è di fronte alle immagini dell’artista, che a sua volta guarda attraverso l’obbiettivo quanti stanno osservando. Gli scatti vengono, poi, rielaborati e accostati secondo due criteri: quello basato sul ritmo, sui valori formali e compositivi, sugli effetti di luce e ombra e quello suggerito dai nessi di significato leggibili nelle immagini. A partire dal 2003 nasce il Disegno interno,  termine preso in prestito da Federico Zuccari che nel 1600 riprendendo la teoria del Vasari distingue tra “disegno interno”, l’ideazione e “disegno esterno” (materiale). Per Mariella Bettineschi il processo è inverso a quello tradizionale perché risale dall’opera alla sua matrice indagando come nasce l’immagine. Laura Jane Culpan le definisce lo “scheletro creato”, il “DNA” , “l’essenza” delle immagini. Sono segni, contorni in bianco e nero che acquistano la loro piena dimensione di pensiero, sogno, immagine interna quando sono accostati a fotografie di persone a occhi chiusi. Tra uomo e figura nasce un rapporto mentale e visivo: ciò che è interno si esternizza acquistando una realtà propria, allo stesso tempo l’uomo vive Dentro un disegno.
Contemporaneamente la Bettineschi crea immagini digitali che, attraverso la variazione del colore o per un gioco di luce-ombra, sono pervase da un dinamismo innanzitutto luminoso, che impedisce alle figure di avere contorni definiti e dunque le sottopone ad un continuo mutamento. Sono, per dirne alcune, Esplosione, Fuga, Gelo.
Le ricerche sul movimento attraverso la luce-colore sfociano nella Teoria delle sfere dove sfere colorate stampate su plexiglas sono montate poco distanti dalla parete creando un continuo gioco tra bi e tridimensionalità. L’idea di questa forma geometrica perfetta nasce in riferimento alle teorie sull’universo formulate dagli antichi Greci, secondo cui tutto è regolato da un sistema di sfere che ruotano. A questo è strettamente legato il concetto platonico dell’universo ideale. Il distacco dalla realtà è ormai totale, il computer diviene fonte di materiale e mezzo artistico.
Con questo l’artista ricostruisce una serie di immagini di pianeti e stelle indagati attraverso Astronavi, che divengono il veicolo della conoscenza.Questa instancabile ricerca che si affatica nel continuo riandare dal particolare all’universale, dal passato al futuro, dalle tenebre alla luce, dall’esterno all’interno,  dalla negazione al coinvolgimento, dal forzare allo sciogliere, dal velare allo svelare, dal materiale allo spirituale sempre per opposti,  in realtà  interpreta straordinariamente la dinamica del vivere con i suoi complessi legami  di reciprocità.  Grazie a questo  continuo processo  l’unità, che è sempre ricercata eppure transitoria, sembra farsi presente come un respiro capace di  rimettere in gioco la propria identità che non è mai  monolitica, ma esito di un continuo processo di dare e avere, luogo della relazione e, ultimamente, del riconoscimento di una appartenenza.