Carola Bagnato: Polvo de estrellas, temporary exhibition at BAS Museum

In Bagnato’s imagery we find a combination of characters, animals, natural elements and references to childhood, memories, dreams and the fantastic. She creates scenes that look playful but not innocent, hiding a more introspective dimension. The ambivalence between tenderness and strangeness stands out: the cats and characters have features that can evoke the tender, the childlike or the familiar. Yet their scale, their expressions and the overlapping and coexistence of elements create an ambiguous atmosphere.

The altered proportions, organic shapes and exaggerated features do not seem to stem from an interest in anatomical or naturalistic representation; instead, they work as a way of giving the characters identity, expressiveness and presence.

Formally, her work is characterised by a naïve aesthetic, with traits of illustration and drawing that show in the expressive use of line and stroke, formal synthesis and the expressive character of her paintings.

Stylistically, she draws on elements close to trash pop and kitsch. The dreamlike dimension we mentioned also brings her work close to surrealism, though not in a strict sense.

Carola Bagnato (Mar del Plata, Argentina, 1990) developed a close relationship with drawing and painting from an early age, a practice she later formalised by specialising in drawing at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of La Plata. Her main media are painting on canvas, murals and illustration, although she also enjoys experimenting with other disciplines, such as ceramics.

From 2012 she began creating murals in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Portugal and Spain, working with institutions, cultural projects and international brands. She has lived in Barcelona since 2020, where she combines mural work with studio painting, as well as running educational and participatory projects.

She conceives her murals following what is known as a site-specific approach. This means she takes into account the physical, architectural, historical, social and contextual features of the place she is creating the work for, so that the location becomes part of the work itself and its meaning.