The exhibition, Icone Terrene, took place on May 22, 23, and 24 at Ubiquity Studio. Maria Teresa presented her new artist’s book Madri together with the Ex voto series, alongside a selection of her previous prints.

Here is Studio Ubuquity ready to welcome visitors.

To thank our guests, Maria Teresa prepared some postcards to give away, some printed in ink, others on aluminum.

The workshop Il progetto d’interni come atto narrativo took place on Saturday and Sunday, welcoming 16 participants.

This workshop presents a research framework developed by the American University in Dubai and RUDN University, which was presented at the ADADA Conference in Tokyo. Participants will explore how spatial configurations, materials, and design elements construct atmosphere and meaning, comparing human interpretation with AI-assisted analysis to reveal the narrative structures embedded within interior spaces.

We came together from different backgrounds and shared perspectives, and built a meaningful experience together. Thank you all, and see you next year!

Special thanks to Giorgia del Bianco, Open House Roma.

This is a seemingly devotional representation: a truly religious mode of representation is used to depict an entirely secular subject: five mothers holding their children, rendered “holy” by self-denial, endurance, and courage. A sanctity of everyday life, as material, earthly, and human as it ever was.

To make the book, I started by first making the matrices for ink printing. Then I printed them.

These are the results. For the second icon, I created two matrices because I wasn’t satisfied with the first one.

Creating Madri took a long time, both in the design and construction phases. I especially had problems printing aluminum. I had to test different metal thicknesses to find the best one for dry printing.

Dry printing on different thicknesses yielded varying results. Once I found the right plate and printed it, I stabilized the folds with an elastic filler typically used for cosplay costumes.

Here is the final result with the printed sheets and the aluminum plates overlapped and glued together

Lastly I made the cover of the book. It’s a box made of old galvanized sheets bent with a hammer. I had to choose between several options to add the title. In the end, I opted for a stencil and black spray paint.

The plainness and simplicity of the exterior deliberately contrast with the richness of the interior: what appears to be a warehouse container reveals itself to be a precious treasure chest, worthy of holding a precious jewel.

Here are three different colleges created for different competitions in recent years.

Created in 2024 for the 8th International Illustration Competition organized by the Malagutti Foundation, Leggero come un macigno is a collage composed of a single piece of linocut printed twice on two different substrates: light blue cardboard and brown paper.
I used a frame from an old Maciste’s movie, one of the many I have seen, as my starting point.

I created Voilà in 2025 for Tapirulan’s Illustrators Contest. For this print, I created four matrices, one for the clown and one for each ball. I printed the first one on white paper and the others on red cardboard, which I also used for the background.

This collage Natura morta? No viva! is for the second edition of Una montagna di pascoli competition organized by the Forte di Bard Association in 2026. It is a multi-matrix collage: each element is carved individually and then assembled. I used two different papers: craft paper and japanese paper Jia Xuan only for the iris. This last one is a very rare kind of iris, the Iris perrieri, flower that can only be found in the Savoy Alps.

The artist’s book Sette Corvi Neri is also a collage.

When I was little, my brother and I had a very common encyclopedia. One of its volumes contained poems and nursery rhymes.
I still have that book; I read it to my children when they were boys, and now I’ve decided to start a project based on one of its doggerel.

The choice was easy: I loved this nursery rhyme and I still love it: there are seven black crows—I mean black, really black—on the pear tree in the Gualtieros’ garden.

I started by designing the book’s shape. I made a prototype to understand how to fold each part and how to adjust the dimensions. Then I outlined a tree, chose the images of the crows, engraved them and put them in a right position.

At a later time I sketched two different trees, one on each side, and chose the position of the crows and how to draw them.

Then I carved all the parts, added the pears and prepared the prints for the book’s box. It took a long time and a lot of work.

Printing was also difficult because I had never used a multi-color technique before. So it took me a few tries before I got acceptable outcome. None of the prints is perfect, but I think I got a good final result.

I also printed out some sheets to cover the book boxes.

The last thing to do was to cut out each book and glue crows and pears on them.

To add the nursery rhyme to the book, I asked a 3D lab to create some stencils.

Finally the book is finished!

I printed the first two in both black and white and color versions.

They are small paintings or tiny objects, often made of silver, in the most varied shapes: they can be images of legs, eyes, hands, children, but most commonly hearts.

As usual I started to engrave them by suggestion.

ex voto 1

ex voto 2

I combined the study of the shapes and shadows of the “heart objects” with the analysis of the brocade canvases.

ex voto 3

ex voto 4

The ones above are all linocuts.
I also made the second heart in drypoint for comparison.

Finally some small ones printed with ink and on aluminum.

After small glass objects it’s time to test the result with a larger one.

Over 150 visitors joined us across two days, stepping into our creative space to explore a curated journey through our recent works in visual art, interior design, and narrative environments.

The exhibition featured linocut prints, design projects, and a preview of our new illustrated catalogue, Il Giardino delle Iris — a small walk through an imaginary garden blending the real with the surreal.

We also prepared a curated selection of engravings and a showcase of our latest visual and spatial design works.

We spent two intense and engaging days with many people who came to see our works and visited our space on Saturday 24th May and Sunday 25th.

We aslo prepared some gadgets and a catalogue of the exhibition

The catalogue was conceived as an illustrated book that invites the reader on a brief journey through a small enchanted garden that is both real and imagined.

We arranged the linocut prints as if guiding the reader along this imaginary path, enhancing the experience with short phrases that accompany and orient the “visitor” through the space we envisioned.

The project began with a rough prototype, which we continuously refined and restructured until it evolved into its final form.

The cover also had various versions until the final one.

For printing we chose a recycled paper Freelife Fedrigoni and we did the binding by hand.

Mezzotint is a very difficult direct technique: it requires great skill, enormous sensitivity and also infinite patience. Only when all these elements are present can good results be obtained.

To make a mezzotint engraving it is necessary to prepare the metal plate with a process of roughening.

The metal plate (preferably copper) is worked with a berceaux to obtain a surface that holds the ink evenly. Where the print needs to have white or grey areas, the engraver will smooth the surface.

Although I have never made a mezzotint, I know people who do. So I involved my husband in the creation of a tool that would make the work of graniture easier and faster.

The prototype was created for a berceaux by Miroballi, a company producing artisanal fine art objects in Rome.

A type of this instrument had already been made, but Francesco had the idea of ​​adding an angle adjustment system.

Adding weights make the jig ready to work.

We asked Lucia Piu, one of the engravers at the Trastevere laboratory expert in mezzotint, to test the tool: it passed her exam!

Here is a detail of one of her works created with this technique.

We have just made a new bigger jig. It fits Lyons berceaux perfectly.