Mariela Scafati

Mariela Scafati’s paintings comprise a record on personal experiences, displayed over a very wide diapason of artistic aspirations and abilities—the language of geometric abstraction, modern design and applied art, the activation of communication with the viewer and of spaces for artistic participation in the city, political propaganda and direct action, are some of the applications Scafati found for her painting in a time span encompassing her work in Buenos Aires since the late 90s, after having studied Fine Arts in Bahía Blanca. Painting, in these conditions, is not only the outlet for biography, but also a language contiguous with more experiences and practices: a language, in the end, which can be spoken in the street, at the gallery, in artists’ spaces like Belleza y Felicidad (where Scafati produced some of her main exhibitions) in political demonstrations, or in a home radio station. To find Scafati’s whereabouts in these and other spaces and environments during the last fifteen years would be analogous to measure the recent artistic history of Buenos Aires, to discover its places, its obsessions and ambitions. Color and geometric patterns are the elements through which Scafati’s works settle their time and environment.