Marietta

Marietta Robusti (1560-1590) was the daughter of the renowned painter Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti, 1518-1594). Like her father, she was also a painter within the Venetian school during the Renaissance, and she was sometimes referred to as Tintoretta, meaning “dyer girl.” Marietta collaborated with her father in his workshop, showcasing her artistic talents. Both Emperor Maximilian (Holy Roman Emperor, 1459-1519) and King Philip II of Spain (1527-1598) sought to elevate her to the position of court painter, but her father declined these honors on her behalf. Carlo Ridolfi (1594-1658) remarked that Marietta possessed skill comparable to her father's, infused with “sentimental femininity, a womanly grace that is both delicate and resolute.” Tragically, she passed away at the young age of thirty during childbirth. The only painting definitively attributed to Marietta Robusti is her Self Portrait.

More than six centuries later, in the current work, the Self Portrait of Marietta is subjected to both mechanical and organic distortions. First, the Self Portrait is scanned and printed. Next, the printed image is manipulated using organic materials such as flower petals, grass, soil, and a pumice stone, among others. This distorted printed image is then scanned and printed again. This procedure is repeated a total of ten times. The overarching goal is to create a metaphor for the gradual omission and fading of Marietta’s artistic legacy over time. The resulting images are organized in a grid format consisting of 18 videos. Accompanying the videos is the song “Che si può fare?” (translation: “What can I do?”) by the Italian baroque composer and singer, Barbara Strozzi (b. 1677-1619), who was born more than a century after Marietta Robusti's death.