Bea Scaccia makes paintings and animations whose images serve as a reflection on gender, identity, beauty, and monstrosity. Her work excavates the psyche, the subconscious to question our assurances.

‘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. 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 of 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 maintain an aura of prestige of uniqueness, resulting in true parodies of bon ton’. (B.Monti).   

Bea 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 Sargent’s Daughters West, Los Angeles (2023); 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.

Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Artnet News, Flash Art, The Art Newspaper, Nero Magazine, Domus, Marie Claire, Arte Mondadori, Drome Magazine, Art Fuse, Elle Décor, Sole24Ore, Whitehot Magazine.

 

 

EDUCATION

2016-17 Animation, School of Visual Arts, New York

1998-2002 Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, MFA in Fine Art

 

SELECTED SOLO SHOWS

2022 With Their Striking Features, JDJ Tribeca, New York

2021 My Hope Chest, Katonah Museum of Art, New York
2014 Little Gloating Eve, Cuchifritos Gallery, New York

2014 Little Gloating Eve, Effearte, Milan

2013 The Perfect Stage, Bosi Contemporary, New York

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023 Death of Beauty, Sargent’s Daughters West, Los Angeles

2022 Fabrizio Clerici, National Gallery, Rome

2022 JDJ at Nada New York, NY

2022 JDJ at Dallas Art Fair, Dallas

2020 THE LONG MINUTE, The Center for the Less Good Idea, founded by William Kentridge, Johannesburg

2020 Homemade, Magazzino Italian Art, New York

2020 The Now, Pen + Brush, New York

2019 BelVedere 2, MARS-MIART, Milan

2018 A black line across the page, Espronceda Institute of Art, Barcelona
2017 For WLD, Works from The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation, Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York

2016 Transformer, American University’s Katzen Arts Center, Washington DC

2014 DiviNA Commedia, ARCOS - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea del Sannio, Benevento

2012 Les Intermittences du coeur, Ex Elettrofonica, Rome
2012 Patria Interiore - Inner Homeland, curated by Manuela Pacella, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (catalog presentation at MACRO Museum, Rome)

 

RESIDENCIES

2021 Thinking in Cardboard, Virtual Mentorship program with Sabine Theunissen, The Centre for the Less Good idea’s SO Academy, in collaboration with the UNITA program and Scenography Today

2020 Homemade, Virtual program, Magazzino Italian Art, New York

2016 Woodstock Byrdcliffe Residency, New York

2014 Artists Alliance Inc, New York

2013 Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn, New York