Silvina Mamani

About Silvina Mamani

Argentine artist Silvina Mamani paints figures, solo or in groups, in repose, playing or dancing to an unsung musical score. Trained as a sculptor, Mamani carves the figures - equally beloved by her in their various shapes and sizes - out of two-dimensional settings.

Argentine artist Silvina Mamani paints figures, solo or in groups, in repose, playing or dancing to an unsung musical score. Trained as a sculptor, Mamani carves the figures - equally beloved by her in their various shapes and sizes - out of two-dimensional settings. For Mamani, shape does not determine beauty; it is whether people move through space, and ultimately through their lives, with conviction and integrity that is of greater import. A triathlete, marathoner and recent Iron Man, Mamani has great respect for physical strength and the potential of the human form. She spends hours in pools, locker rooms and on the road observing bodies in motion. For Mamani, the figure is the physical manifestation of character and personality. "I see all kinds of peopleÑbig, skinny, small. I love to watch large women sitting in chairs, comfortable with who they are and unconscious of their intrinsic beauty." Mamani was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1973, where she graduated from La Scuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Lola Mora, an art magnet high school, with a concentration in drawing. She developed her passion for sculpture at the University Prilidiano Pueyrredon, Buenos Aires, where she was mentored by Daniel Fiore. "At that time I thought sculpture was the truest form of the expression of the figure," she says. "My sculpture training gave me the skills to look behind the figure and carve a space from a flat plane." In 1997 Mamani arrived in New York to study at the Art Students League, where she remains today. The following year the artist found a trove of discarded wallpaper sheets outside a factory in her QueensÕs neighborhood. Out of a desire to reuse and recycle the found material, the artist began to paint on the back of the wallpaper "After nearly a decade of working with it, I have come to prefer its smooth texture and quality over standard artist paper," she says, adding that fortunately, she has a thick stack remaining. Mamani received an Honorable Mention for sculpture at the XI Salon de Estudiantes at the Avellaneda Institute of Fine Art in Buenos Aires, I992, and an Honorable Mention for drawing at the 2005 Jury Show, the Art Society of Old Greenwich (CT). Her work has been featured at the Gallery of the Banco de la Cudad de Buenos Aires Foundation, 1989, 1990, the Student Salon of the Argentine Association of Sculptors Artes I, Centro de Estudios Municipales, 1994, at the Java Studio Art Show, 2006, and at several recent Open Studio tours at Crane Street Studios, LIC. This is her first exhibition at Susan Eley Fine Art.

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