BIO
Maria Positano
Born in London in 1995. Lives and works in London.
Maria Positano weaves concepts of subjective world building and collective narrative production. Combining material histories to enrich faceted notions of her/their own cultural belonging. Their work speculates and fictions ethnographic her/stories. Drawing from their own nomadic upbringing the artist constructs a multidisciplinary practice. Their present work stems from an interest in armour and defence strategies. Thinking about embodiment, vulnerability and transnational ecologies allows the artist to restructure ideas of political resilience and resistance. Positano newly contextualises existing existing historical references reconfiguring narrative production. Combining Greco-Roman armour/shields, pan-cultural, and polygenic cultural things, they are interested in broadening ideas around dominant heritage and identity. Existing historical references are freely and newly contextualized in the weave of the work. The artist combines ambiguity with seemingly antithetic juxtapositions and overall narrative openness. Positano sees the work as a return of belonging, navigating through memory, fictional and personal history. Exploring the potential relationship between intergenerational heritage, violent national pasts, remembrance and disappearance.
Major solo exhibitions: 2022: A perfect place, Studio Block M74, Mexico City; 2020: Take me Somewhere Nice, Lockbund Gallery, Oxfordshire; 2018: Making Meaning, Subsidiary Project, London.
Major group exhibitions: 2023: Felt cute, might delete later, Arusha Gallery, London; Beyond the matter, Galerie Der Kunsler Innen, Munich; Soft Monuments, Frestonian Gallery, London; 2for1, Thorp Stavri & Haze x Hyphastudios, London; Hung Drawn Quartered, Staffordshire St Studios, London; 2022: The Appearance Formula, Andrea Festa Fine Art, Rome; La Camaleona, Galeria 54, Mexico City; One By One, Fiumano Clase, London; 2020: Discoveries 2020 – The Biting Point, Fiumano Clase, London.
