Studio Notes

Concepts in Architectural Abstract Painting

Reflections, essays, and notes on abstract painting, space, and territory.

High-angle perspective view of a spacious industrial loft with black steel beams and light wood floors. Hanging at the center of a tall exposed brick wall is a vertical abstract painting featuring a large cobalt blue field, a rust-colored block on the left edge, and small red squares suspended on thin white lines.

Essay

The Burden of the Unfinished Step

A reinterpretation of the myth of Sisyphus through the visual sobriety of GRADUS, dismantling the creator's need for endless struggle to justify existence.

A horizontal abstract painting by Maurizio Valch, leaning, featuring angular monolithic forms and a diagonal white path. Dominant colors are orange, yellow, red, and white, with a yellow sphere set against a pale pink sky. Visible textural details.

Essay

Fresh Earth for the Hero

By confronting Joseph Campbell's monomyth with the painting Via Solis and a spoken-word poem, the epic of achievement dissolves: the true end of the journey is not glory, but relinquishing the need...

Horizontal abstract painting featuring a large blue field, a vibrant red block, and an ascending red ladder over pink and ochre tones, with a turquoise stripe at the base. The surface displays impasto texture and incisions. Photographed in a sunlit studio, casting shadows.

Essay

The Keel in the Desert

At the frontier where solid ground surrenders to the sea, the works of the Mare Somniorum series, a sound poem, and the metaphors of The Little Prince trace a suspended journey where true movement ...

A low-angle photograph of a vertical red canvas resting on a rustic wooden floor in a high-ceilinged artist atelier. The painting features a dense crimson surface divided by four fine, slightly tilted white horizontal lines. Small, white textured rectangular blocks are positioned on each line in an ascending staggered pattern. The canvas leans against an aged wall under soft natural light.

Essay

The Incisions of the Map

The transition of Maurizio Valch’s STRATA series from the sterile order of the studio to the rustic exposure of a barn, where the canvas stands as an autonomous monolith marked by lines of pure sub...

Essay

The Missing Beat

How silence, syncopation, and formal subtraction connect us to the work of art, compelling the nervous system and the imagination to double their active presence.

Horizontal abstract painting with a dominant dark green background. Three rectangular blocks, two red and one with blue tones, appear with darker reflections or shadows below. Two thin, wavy white lines cross the composition. The artwork leans against a light wall in a high-ceiling studio.

Essay

The Tactile Shore

Inhabiting the dividing line not as a wall of separation, but as the shared membrane where opposites touch, merge, and discover one another.

Vertical abstract painting by Maurizio Valch, titled ADITUS. It features dark blue, brown, and black tones with incised horizontal bands. Rectangular blocks in yellow, red, and white are visible, along with a white element showing drips and a small ladder ascending towards an opening. The surface is textured.

Essay

The Architecture of the Trench

Drawing on Ken Wilber's non-dual philosophy, this essay explores creative blocks not as a lack of talent, but as an active, somatic resistance the artist constructs against their own process.

A vertical abstract painting rests on the wooden floorboards of an artist's studio with aged turquoise walls. The canvas shows a textured crimson red field crossed horizontally by fine, incised white lines and four small, intense red rectangular blocks arranged in a diagonal progression.

Essay

The Insubordination of the Slope

Confronting the constraint of the right angle and the abstract grid that parcel out modern experience, the material density of DECLIVIS reclaims the right to fall and the physical wisdom of imperfe...

Horizontal STRATA composition in burgundy tones, crossed by pale lines and red and turquoise rectangular forms.

Essay

STRATA: The Surface That Remembers

In STRATA, the painted surface becomes a territory where matter, body and memory are subjected to pressure, erosion and transformation.

Essay

The Ascent Without a Ladder

This article analyzes the evolution of the concept of 'ascent' in Maurizio Valch's work. Initially visible as a ladder in early series such as MARE SOMNIORUM, the idea of ascent transforms into a s...

Vertical abstract painting by Maurizio Valch, from the STRATA series, displayed in an industrial architectural interior with concrete walls. The predominantly red and dark artwork features broad, superimposed color fields with subtle reliefs and linear white incisions that traverse the surface. Small, light rectangular forms are scattered, creating points of visual tension within the deep chromatic field.

Essay

The Skin of Territory

Maurizio Valch's STRATA series explores territory as a living surface, a skin that retains the marks of memory and transformation. Through incisions and blocks, the painting merges individual exper...

Abstract painting by Maurizio Valch from the PRIMORDIUM series. It features large, dark vertical forms resembling buildings or walls. A solitary sphere is positioned to one side. Small stairways are integrated into the composition, almost merging with the structures, creating a primordial landscape with distinct architectural elements and spatial divisions.

Essay

When the Ground Appeared

Maurizio Valch's series explore territory as an originating condition (PRIMORDIUM), a space of emergence (EMERSIO), and a threshold of transformation (LIMINA). His painting examines how consciousne...

Abstract painting featuring a large red rectangular block on the left and a dominant dark blue field. A luminous circular form simulates a moon in the sky. Staircase elements and horizontal lines in earthy, orange, and gray tones create layers at the bottom of the composition. Texture is visible across the canvas.

Essay

From Dream to Territory

Maurizio Valch's work traces an artistic journey from dreamlike perception to structured territory. His series, including MARE SOMNIORUM, PRIMORDIUM, LIMINA, and STRATA, form a continuous inquiry i...