There is a sense of timelessness and slow contemplation invoked by Valentina Maggiolo's work—scaling the infinite against the intimate and inviting reflection on responsibility and care for the environment.
Valentina Maggiolo’s work navigates the intricate interplay between the natural and the supernatural, crafting landscapes that hover between the familiar and the uncanny. Using a muted yet evocative color palette, her works delve into themes of temporality and permanence, exploring the haunting remnants of time through the lens of ruins, the desert, and sundials. These elements enhance the contrast between light and shadow, invoking a sense of timelessness and slow contemplation. Her pieces scale the infinite against the intimate, inviting reflection on responsibility and care for the environment.
Incorporating elements such as fire, rock formations, dried-up vegetation, snakeskins, bones, and even references to UFOs, Maggiolo’s work bridges natural history with the metaphysical. Through slower techniques such as oil painting, frescoes, ceramics, and the insertion of site-specific sculptures in the Peruvian desert, her images brew and overlay with time. This allows a tactile materiality to be portrayed through washes, while more spectral qualities lend themselves to her sculptural proposals. Through her “slow paintings,” she invites viewers to engage with the temporality of existence, prompting meditative reflection on the transient and enduring aspects of life—much like eyes adjusting to the dark before seeing a ghost.
Maggiolo encourages viewers to see beyond the surface, delving deeper into the layers of meaning beneath. Her work becomes a medium for reflection and discovery, where light and shadow encapsulate the delicate balance between the seen and unseen, urging us to ponder our place within the ever-changing landscape of time.
Valentina Maggiolo graduated with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2014, earning a BFA in Painting with a concentration in Art History. Her notable exhibitions include Negar el desierto at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), Lima, Peru; Ostras, caracoles y babosas at Vasto, Barcelona, Spain; and Otro tiempo at Ginsberg Gallery, Lima, Peru. In 2018, she completed a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and received a Special Mention in the Museum of Reserve Bank National Painting Contest.
Currently, she lives and works in her studio in Lima, where she is also the founder of Perro Blanco, a dynamic project space dedicated to chamber concerts and workshops. This space reflects her commitment to the intersection of visual and performing arts, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and a vibrant artistic community.