Luciana Mariano

Luciana Mariano (1971)

“Being born and raised in South America, I had two choices: comply or rebel. I am definitely a rebel. For too long, I have observed women around the world being abused. Through my art, even as a very subjective, modest contribution, I try to touch subjects like gender, race, social equality, justice, freedom, choice, empathy, and human rights. Artists can’t fix the world… but we can paint it.
Everything that happens around me; things I see, hear, feel, become raw material from which my work grows” - Luciana Mariano, 2022.

Luciana Mariano is a Brazilian painter, the third generation of naïve artists in her Italian-Portuguese family. For the last 14 years, she has participated in international museum and gallery exhibitions and projects dedicated to naïve art.
She is an outsider, a contemporary naïve with colourful narratives. Although composed with a childish and delicate trait, her art is not free from restlessness provocation. It encompasses the feminine universe, small secrets in intriguing elements. There is always something to be told, observed, and questioned; sometimes, the scene is populated by chubby cats and noisy characters; other times, it is just silent or empty, supported by hidden objects and symbols that unveil the artist’s soul and invite the viewer into their wonderings, ponderings and stories.

Luciana Mariano was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. Currently she lives and works in Pirkkala, Finland. Since 2008 she has participated in 36 group exhibitions and arranged 12 solo shows worldwide. Luciana Mariano was chosen as the naïve art representative for the 2010 Cow Parade in São Paulo, Brazil; in 2012, she created the “The World is our Home” mural in Wembley, UK, commissioned by Seneca Project.

Luciana Mariano’s works are in public collections: MIMAN-Museu Internacional de Miniatures de Arte Naif (Paraty-Rio de Janero, Brazil), MIAN-Museu Internacional de Arte Naif (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Museu de Arte de Batatais (Batatais-San Paulo, Brazil), Museu do Sol (Penápolis-Sao Paulo, Brazil), Musée d'Art Spontané (Brussels, Belgium), Bulgarian Naif Museum (Sofia, Bulgaria), Castle Lysice Collection (Lysice, Czech Republic)