Slightly Mad: A Will Of Its Own is another piece that technically speaking is very complex. Roberta used her motif-making with brush and pen and stippling techniques, layered upon big bold brush strokes and their ‘broken textures’ on paper. Some areas even count up to 4 layers of work, very intricate and very subtle to even the most inquisitive of minds, imperceptible to the naked eye. This piece was completed over the course of different months for a total of 200 hours of work; Roberta had to take quite a long break on it, due to some family issues that called her back to her home country, abruptly and for roughly 5 months. Slightly Mad [...] is an artwork that is quite different from her previous works in the same series; her madness and genius in the level of details and the finesse in which those details are placed on the paper is unparalleled, and there is a sense of chaos, dynamicity that is quite disrupting to the peace that Roberta wishes so much to convey with most of her works. Perhaps as a reflection of the turbulence and the rough waters she had to navigate due to the loss of her mother, this piece of art is the very first artwork where Roberta could not shut the emotions out, so much so that maybe consciously, maybe not, those emotions flowed onto the paper to their final resting place. The concept of abruption is present. One could say, it is evidently pictured. In a process that felt not her own, Roberta explains she felt restless and helpless, in her own words: “I wanted to give up and quit altogether quite a few times, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I struggled, I pleaded for peace and clarity, but it [the artwork] would not let me have it. And when I realize that I was not the one painting this, I decided I was going to surrender and continue to paint until the art would have me.”

VIDEO OF THIS ARTWORK