Artistic
approach
The artistic approach of Bettina Massa is grounded in a reflection on the fugacity of existence and the need to find meaning and bearings in a continually changing universe. In her work, she explores the tensions between fragility and strength, impermanence and the endurance of matter.
Her early creations bear the imprint of Mediterranean cultures and their mythologies. She subsequently developed a distinctive practice, working in oil on large, thick sheets of black paper handmade in monasteries in Bhutan. Through mastery of gesture and technique, she reveals the potential of this now-rare support.
Her process begins with a constructed underpainting, tested against the reactions of the support: the paper absorbs the first image, softens its presence, and retains only a thread of memory. The artist then works through overpainting, erasure, and layering, letting the material inflect the composition. This practice—where intention composes with chance—generates vibrant fields of color, thresholds of light, and emergent figures. The work is built like a stratigraphy of the visible: each layer bears witness to an earlier state, between appearance and disappearance. At the center of this approach lies an inquiry into myth and memory—not as illustrative themes, but as active forces that shape the painting and confer upon it its own time.
Her work unfolds in polyptychs, suites, and series. Each sheet preserves its autonomy, yet the dialogue between them opens a visual field that extends beyond the frame. The work is never closed: it is constructed through continuities, ruptures, and resonances, like a fragmentary memory stretching indefinitely.
Her paintings invite viewers to question their own presence in the world. They elicit a sensitive perception of time, of trace, and of the infinite, calling forth both immediate emotion and reflection on our condition as finite beings.
BiographY
Born in Corsica, Bettina Massa lived from childhood in the proximity of the works of the great masters of painting. Her father worked at the Fesch Museum in Ajaccio, which allowed her to regularly visit the Italian Primitives: Botticelli, Titian, the Neapolitan Caravaggio... This privileged relationship with the art pieces will durably nourish her imagination, confront her with different techniques and, quite naturally, lead her to develop a personal approach to pictorial creation.
She is a visual artist as well as an art teacher. She is also active as a scenographer in the field of the performing arts. She has designed sets for professional directors in Paris, Casablanca, Jerusalem and Brussels.
She has exhibited in Corsica, Paris, Brussels and London.