Mia Fabrizio

Artist Statement

I am consumed with hidden and exposed structure, both architectural and social. My investigation of physical construction, cultural constructs, and their interrelationship originates from the framework most familiar to me: the house in which I grew up.

Our family home is fifteen miles outside of Philadelphia's center, in a former steel mill town where European immigrants of the early 1900s—particularly Irish, Polish, and Italian—settled. In the mid-1950s, my Italian American grandfather remodeled this 3-story family house into a multi-use structure that serves as a home and a family-run business. The smells of perm solution and fresh tomato gravy have mingled for four generations. Still today, only three steps separate the handcrafted hair salon from our kitchen table.

I merge painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture, and installation to create both two- and three-dimensional artwork that deconstructs and recreates this space. There is an emphasis on memory as I adhere, carve, and chip away at wallpaper, plywood, drywall, paneling, and objects. Patterns are interrupted and fall apart.

Through materiality and process, I aim to relate a sense of fluidity between feminine and masculine, public and private, and modern and traditional. The physical layering of materials alludes to the emblematic layers of people and to the layers that compose immigrant culture over time. The work is a map of comprehension. By peeling away facades and breaking down constructs, my intention is to question the systems that are accepted and perpetuated as normal, to cast away the prescribed, and to free the spirit of the individual.

Instagram: @mia.fabrizio

Website: miafabrizio.com