Michela Martello’s bright green house announces its presence among the staid brownstones of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. It announces that an artist lives here. She answers the door a little breathlessly; calls out to her husband, Mauro Bareti, that guests have arrived, then whisks you downstairs to her domain, her joyful kingdom of art.
Martello’s studio on the ground floor is lined with her brightly colored art and stacks of books about art and Buddhism. The works themselves are so entrancing that you can stare at them contently for thirty seconds or more before you realize you’re looking at, say, a topless woman with clouds coming out of her armpits or a couple of mystical beings having sex. The studio decor contains its own pops of color: a green throw pillow here, a pink door there. You have to duck around a giant, sculptural white dress made of paper that she’s working on for an upcoming installation. She seems remarkably unconcerned when you accidentally brush up against it.
Martello, fifty-seven, is a contemporary visual and sculptural artist whose work is full of unique symbolism drawn from her unlikely combination of experiences and influences. There’s her Italian upbringing; there’s the
