Beatrice Scaccia

Provenance:  Courtesy of the Artist

“Bea Scaccia is moved by an explicit curiosity toward expressions of human exaggeration. Strongly influenced by the manners of her hometown, near the Italian Capital, then by the extremely commercial and fictional nature of New York City, where she lives, she focuses on the devices of mask composition in human identity. “I developed a fascination with the absurdity of artifice. This early interest later became the subject of my art, along with the inextricable connection between beauty and monstrosity in female archetypes.” Blinded by the seductive aesthetics of Venetian wigs, by the costumes of the commedia dell’arte, she looks up to Domenico Gnoli and is accompanied by the surreal legacy of art history. Scaccia reworks the elements that are part of the illusion in beauty and the construction of appearance, compressed on the canvas as surreal sets of affectation. Objects thus decontextualized, away from the human figure or the dressing room, no longer maintaining that aura of prestige and uniqueness, resulting in true parodies of bon ton.” (B.Monti, 2022)

Scaccia, who spent her upbringing in Veroli, Italy, earned her BA and MFA at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, studying with Gino Marotta. In 2011, she moved to New York. 

She has had solo exhibitions at venues including JDJ Tribeca, New York (2022); the Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2021); Cuchifritos Gallery, New York (2014). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Andrea Festa Fine Art, Rome (2022); Magazzino Italian Art, New York (2020); The Center for the less Good Idea, Johannesburg (2020); American University’s Katzen Arts Center, Washington, D.C. (2016). 

Her work is present in many important public and private collections, including the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation and the Portland Museum of Art.