Mariana Aiassa/

As an emerging artist, focused primarily on making digital illustrations and animations, she often works in black and white and has a characteristic line work style with a preference for folky details and introspective and universal themes. She has a special interest in art therapy and the utilization of art to get to know our present selves.

She started showing interest in art at a young age and won a gold medal for her entry in the painting category of the Torneos Bonaerenses of Argentina in 2003. In 2005 she earned the Procrearte scholarship to take art classes in the city of Buenos Aires (which she had to decline because of time unavailability).

Mariana never stopped creating. But it was not until 2019, when she started creating under the pseudonym Wariana, that she decided to start her career in the artistic field. Considering herself to be a self-taught artist, she stays curious and interested in finding new mediums and technics to create in. In the last two years, she has been working on a series of papier-mâché pieces and has taken various classes for pencil drawing, watercolor painting and sculpture, among others.

The residence project:

The aim is to make a series called Windows to the Garden. It will be a coloring book project that will contain 32 original black line digital illustrations. Each illustration will show a portrait of a character or creature in different garden settings and seen through a window frame from an indoors perspective. This project will explore the relationship between the safety of the indoors and the freedom of the wilderness that meets in gardens: organized wilderness where it is possible to feel free and safe at the same time. Windows to the Garden is inspired by the desire to speak of the possibility of experiencing these two values at the same time. Even though all humans can relate to the universal strive for freedom and safety, it seems like women are still the most deprived group when it comes to feeling free and safe in today’s society…