Michelin Basso understands drawing as a visual possibility of the thought; therefore, the artist

extends the lineal graphic of what she observes and interprets in her work, using the line as the

produced element of the landscape as a genre, where traces assume both a conceptual and

configurative condition, giving rise to the represented image.

At the beginning, the artist used the lineal graphic as visual instrument, elaborating a landscape

through the selection of natural geographical structures and some lags of urban interventions, such

as abandoned places and ditches. All these referents, selected from observation, were translated

into a lineal graphic defined, essentially, into a vibrant and expressive trace by itself; but, at the

same time, figurative charged of verisimilitude, and with mimetic sense; being able of capturing and

re-structuring the reality to which it still is being a tribute. The iconic configuration of the observed

reality was conditioned by the representational arguments of the drawing. The trace contributed to

the visual deduction, allowing to the spectator to delimitate a shape and to draw a horizon of

expectations regarding the observed, to re-create the image, and to provide an interpretation or

certain sense of it.

Then, the following questions are presented: How visually define the origin of the line, the dot? It is

possible to take the landscape thematic to the lineal origin? In the purpose of visually reply to these

questions, the artist embarks herself in the process of concentrating morphologically the landscape,

to host it in what attends to the visual generic selection, that is, in the basic concept of cumulus,

texture, humidity, moving it away from the descriptive and denotative image.

Basso does an artistic research from a reflexive perspective, trying to take the theoretical and visual

recompilation of the landscape to an extreme, pushing it from the origin of the drawing itself – the

dot – without putting the line aside – in its trajectory – which configures an entire visual entity.

The result is a landscape that distinguishes linear segments in the spatial distribution of the

backing; which, at the same time, allows visualizing the dot, because its referential shapes generate

a local disposition able to represent its essence through a minimalist reduction that deletes the

margins of the referentiality and bring the viewer closer to an intimate experience, connected with

nature itself.

The intention of this work is to generate segments of an unseen landscape, which is practically

invisible because it selects conceptual and generic territorial spaces; or because it selects some

details that escape from the traditional definition of the theme, concentrating the attention in the

trace that configures the concept of the dot, in dialogue and contrast with the backing whiteness.

The details of each of these works end up configuring an organic structure of the landscape,

plotting what is essential of the dot as origin, and managing to provide a visual response to the

questions about this. The artist’s fixation for understanding the drawing behavior in front of the

representation, allows her to come close to the idea of the landscape beyond its usual referents,

inscribing it in the role as it was a mark that the viewer must re-construct from its foundations.

Michelin Basso.