About
MARIZ NIGRO:
MIXED MEDIA ARTIST
Mariz Nigro is an Italo-Argentinian mixed media artist currently based in London. She began to use art, especially oil painting and illustration, to communicate herself very early in her life and hasn’t stopped since.
Moving towards water-soluble media, she now uses a wide range of elements to create bright, vivid narrative paintings and landscapes that exist hallway between abstract and figurative realms.
Mariz Nigro brings the colours of her childhood in Latin America, to the landscapes of her new life among concrete buildings and steel skyscrapers. There is a certain feeling of longing in her approach to girlhood memories that juxtaposes with her critical eye of the misogynistic and highly religious filters of her social upbringing.
Her coming of age is now tinted by the perspective of distance and remoteness, and the rediscovering and rebuilding of her gender and identity.
Her paintings are populated by anonymous women, unidentifiable creatures and her own reinterpreted reflection in an almost autobiographical visual narrative.
Mariz's practice is inspired by a myriad of natural and supernatural sources; from small abyssal sea life to mythological giants and monsters. She incorporates themes such as covens, witchcraft as the historical persecution of groups of women which she relates to her Latin American background and the female relationships that are born from family lineage but also from emotional bonds, the hand-down of information and tradition and the protection from the male's gaze and iron fist. There is a socio-political element that transpires in Nigro's work that collides with the fantastical, which she attributes to her years studying International Relations and the active political environment of Argentinian life.
She has recently started to incorporate her knowledge of graphic design and animation into her practice by using technology as part of her mixed media approach to creating visual art. She uses digital art to re-imagine the meaning of traditional artwork and create new narratives through juxtaposition and reinterpretation, without individual elements losing their original significance.
Mariz often pairs her artwork with her own poetry and free-style text to add a third layer of depth to her two dimensional creations. She is looking forward to continuing to develop her traditional practice and her deep dive into the use of intangible media to create tangible art. She dreams of having a big enough studio to create installations that scale up her distinctive worlds and incorporate projection of still and animated elements, as well as large scale paintings and fabric and thread sculptures.
You can see some of her artwork here. There is also a small selection of illustrations showcasing her creative process here.