On View: February 1 – March 14, 2024
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 1 at 5:00 – 7:00 PM

Marianna Peragallo is a Brazilian-American artist based in New York City. She creates anthropomorphic sculptures of everyday objects that are designed for human consumption and disposal, but reconceives them to humorously misbehave or subvert their assigned roles. The works on view revolve around the plastic takeout bags which are ubiquitous in a city’s visual landscape. She collects bags from walks around her neighborhood and errands made in New York and São Paulo, and uses them as materials in her sculptures. It’s not uncommon to see plastic bags scooting down sidewalks helplessly with a gust of wind, their handles flailing like arms. To Peragallo, they are symbols of consumerist waste and reflections of human experiences, such as feeling overworked, overlooked, playful, grateful, etc. 

The most recent work in the exhibition, Volte Sempre (Come Back Often), was made with a bag that once contained two lunch pastéis from a São Paulo street market – the last meal Peragallo shared with her late grandmother. The bag’s deconstructed state removes its operational intent but makes it a monument to common, yet cherished moments. Other works incorporate a more humorous view of the bags, such as a video titled Good Girl Gone Bag which shows a plastic bag twirling around the leg of a park bench. Visual cues from the city are also reflected in the freestanding sculptures, their stands loosely inspired by the raised metal waste baskets commonly found outside homes in São Paulo.

Several bag sculptures are containers for pothos plants, making us collaborators in sustaining new life. This shifts the dynamic away from one of consumption to care. Pothos plants are common houseplants that can be considered weeds. They are resilient, growing against all odds in poor conditions, and will thrive with care in supportive settings. Peragallo sees a mirroring of this when thinking about her personal history as an immigrant. Each sculpture, expressing a simple gesture, speaks to the potential for acceptance, care, and love for even the most peripheral things.

​​Peragallo has exhibited in the United States, including recent exhibitions at Bravin Lee Gallery, NY,  Spring/Break Art Show in New York and LA, Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), RegularNormal (New York, NY), Transmitter Gallery (Brooklyn, NY),  A.I.R. Gallery (Brooklyn, NY),  and solo exhibitions at Winston’s (Los Angeles, CA) and Here Arts (New York, NY). Marianna was an artist in residence at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony (Woodstock, NY) in 2014, Mass MoCA’s Assets for Artists residency (North Adams, MA) in 2019, Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY) in 2019 and 2022, and the New Hope Colony Artist Residency in 2021. She was in residence at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program from 2021-2022. Marianna received a BFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and an MFA from The School of Visual Arts, New York.