Brancaleone, Calabria
I spot her high on a scaffold lift, brush in hand, painting the worn façade of a public housing block.
The plaster is cracked, the old colors faded. Her brush moves slowly, deliberately. A gust of wind carries the sweet, chemical smell of paint.
She’s Roberta Fiorito, an architecture student. She says she paints old buildings back to life.
Her mural reimagines the Venus de Milo, the pale, limbless bust rising from the wall. The head opens into a branch of jasmine. A swan rests above it.
Jasmine is typical of the area. The Venus de Milo on a crumbling housing block in Calabria is not.
I watch her work. No spray cans. Just the brush, moving slowly. Time settles into each stroke.
“Why the brush?” I ask.
She smiles. “It’s slower than spray paint,” she says, “but more precise. I prefer it.”
“Can I share the photos?”
She nods. “Sure. Just use my pseudonym.”
She gives it to me: Rob_arkt.
Roberta adjusts her helmet and gets back to work.
The brush moves.
Time settles into each stroke, into this wall, into a building everyone had stopped noticing.
