Beatrice Scaccia

Provenance:  Courtesy of the Artist

Beatrice Scaccia creates paintings—and sometimes animations—that are her personal, feminine version of a vanitas. Working with acrylic on canvas, and airbrushing some highlights, she depicts sensual, tight rolls of hair that are forced—not always successfully—into submission. These realistically painted wigs are interwoven with precious jewels, tiaras, pearls, furs, flashes of tulle—all different signifiers of femininity—but are left without any skin, facial features, or other body parts. With her sinister but often calming palette, Scaccia is partly inspired by Venetian wigs, commedia dell’arte costumes, contemporary painter Domenico Gnoli, some Surrealist artists, like Leonor Fini, and especially by the ceremonial Sunday culture of her Italian childhood. Scaccia, who spent her upbringing in Veroli, Italy, to parents of Sicilian heritage, earned her BA and MFA at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. In 2011, she moved to New York, studying animation at the School of Visual Arts. She currently lives and works in NYC.

She has had solo exhibitions at venues including the Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2021; Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York (2018); Cuchifritos Gallery, New York (2014); and Ugo Ferranti Gallery, Rome (2010). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at 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); and AIR Gallery, New York (2011), among others. Her work is present in many important public and private collections, including the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation and the Portland Museum of Art.