Monica
Sarobba

The female body is not a portrait. It is a territory in constant redefinition.

Her work sits at the intersection of photography, collage, and ephemeral installation through the technique of Staged Scanography. She builds compositions directly on the scanner bed, captures them as digital images, and systematically dismantles them.

In her practice, the scanner is not a reproduction tool but an autonomous photographic apparatus. The glass plate defines the focal plane, while a linear light scans the subject sequentially, producing images no optical lens could capture. The direct contact between subject and surface makes each scan the only record of a composition destined to disappear.

Dismantling is integral to the process. Cut-outs, printed materials, and botanical elements are preserved and reintroduced into subsequent works, forming a living archive in constant evolution. The scan preserves an unrepeatable moment, while the remaining fragments become the starting point for new images.

Sarobba explores female identity as a continuous process of fragmentation and regeneration. In the series Headless Women—analog collages in which the face is displaced and fragmented—she investigates the tension between presence and absence in the contemporary female body, the effort of sustaining multiple identities, and the solitude experienced within the urban multitude.

In Organica, she approaches the same inquiry through an opposite register. Real botanical elements layered onto female figures create a protected space where fragmentation gives way to regeneration.

The two series unfold in parallel as complementary responses to the same question of identity in transformation.

Her artistic practice originated as a visceral act of resistance during chemotherapy: a vital need to dismantle and rebuild an identity shaken by illness.

Monica Sarobba trained at the Academies of Fine Arts in Verona and Bologna within the tradition of Bruno Munari. Today, her practice is shaped by two contrasting environments: the protective silence of her urban garden in Verona and the repetitive nocturnal rhythms of Berlin.

After a long career devoted to visual language and art education as an atelierista, she has focused exclusively on her fine art practice since 2022.

Through Staged Scanography, she investigates female identity in contemporary society through processes of fragmentation, memory, and regeneration.

Recent group exhibitions: