Bea Scaccia’s Debut at Gagosian in New York

Gagosian presents Groomed, an exhibition of seven new paintings by Bea Scaccia, opening on September 22 at the Park & 75 location in New York. The exhibition marks the Italian artist’s debut with Gagosian and is the second installment of a new series of solo presentations curated by Francesco Bonami, following GHOSTS by Eliza Douglas. The project was conceived with the aim of using the historic Park Avenue location as a “laboratory for new perspectives,” complementary to the gallery’s programming.

For Scaccia, however, her relationship with Bonami did not begin with Gagosian. The artist was in fact included in the 18th Quadriennale di Roma in 2025, in the section curated by Bonami himself. The transition from the Quadriennale to an exhibition at the New York location of one of the world’s leading international galleries thus adds another element to the story: that of the role of curatorial and institutional relationships in building the international visibility of Italian artists.

Born in Veroli in 1978 and based in New York, Scaccia has developed her practice around the representation of the body through the objects that dress it, decorate it, and define its identity. In the new paintings, she constructs nocturnal and theatrical environments populated by fabrics, wigs, costume jewelry, shoes, belts, zippers, plastic chains, bows, tassels, and synthetic furs. These elements, accumulated in a deliberately excessive manner, form faceless figures, resembling incomplete bodies or marionettes, engaged in everyday actions that seem never to reach completion.

From a technical point of view, the artist uses gesso and acrylic to create matte surfaces and muted colors, subsequently working with an airbrush and oil paint to emphasize certain details. The result is a suspended and uncanny atmosphere, heightened by curtains, wallpaper, beds, chairs, and stairs illuminated by lamps, reading lights, and candles.

The largest painting in the exhibition, Heels over Head—or Pillow Talk (2026), is a diptych that ironically reworks the reclining female figure in Édouard Manet’s Olympia and the theme of the woman reading in an interior, as in Fragonard’s Young Girl Reading. In place of the female body appears a tangle of fabrics and pillows, devoid of a face but engaged in holding up a book.