“My sculptures are born out of deep emotions and feelings, often vague and unwitting, , which are disclosed to me once the work is completed.” What is revealed by Roberta’s work is that unaffected feeling in “doing art” which is never preceded by an intellectual analysis, but is an internal revision of a life experience before it is rationalized. These almost unreal figures are enveloped in space and this spatial dimension surrounds and cradles them. They flutter in air as if they were suspended in a different dimension.
The use of different materials, saponaria, marble, travertine, terracotta, together with the softness and suppleness of the panelling, produces colour and dynamism, notwithstanding the apparent immobility. Her maidens seem never to have been in contact with reality, they are pure and uncontaminated, apparently without a past, but with a spirituality and a purity which deeply affects the viewer.
Only at a later stage does Roberta feel the need to trace the outline of a long luxurianthead of hair as if to underline an up to now never flaunted femininity which now wants to express itself without shame. In the series of the lovers, the viewer is overwhelmed by the energy stemming from the two bodies, two separate individuals who, when falling in love become one; a spiral leading them to infinity so as to underline an unbreakable tie which goes beyond the boundaries of time…but is also a casket of jealously preserved emotions protected from any external influence.
The influence of the 20th century sculptors such as Brancusi, Moore, Arp, is strong, from them the sculptress has acquired her taste for the curved, supple line which originates essential and clean forms. From a formal point of view I would place Roberta’s art exactly at the shift from figurative to abstract art. The elements which characterize the human body merge together, become a symbol but at the same time keep some physical connotations so as to highlight a connection between the divine and earthly dimension, the spiritual and the material. There is no smell, hearing or sight, there is no taste. These bodies need no sense organs to perceive the external vibrations, the sculptress eliminates the superfluous and her maidens sense with their bodies and perceive with their soul.
In some sculptures, notably in “La Sorgente”, one part of the work is left in its natural state on purpose, perhaps because of an unconscious desire to still be able to act upon an organic and vital material, therefore in constant transformation. No shape is defined and remains the same for ever but can be modified any moment to give life to another structure, another shape, to complete what only apparently is unfinished. Observing “La Sorgente” one feels that the work is taking shape in front of our eyes as in a spontaneous performance: invisible hands mould it, look for the lines, trace the outlines, shape their structure.

(M.Chiovoloni)