Giulia Livi American, b. 1992

Giulia Piera Livi is an interdisciplinary artist whose paintings and installations engage with the history of modernist design and minimalism in the home, illuminating the potential for objects to distort our sense of space and reality. In her practice, Livi abstracts everyday objects in an effort to excavate the more complex tensions of domestic life which lie beneath polished surfaces. Issues of desire, consumption, and the absurdity of convenience are foregrounded in her work, inspired by a curiosity with the curated home space. In the past decade, Livi has moved from crafting fully-curated immersive installation rooms to more compact, self-contained sculptural works. Originally trained as a painter, her works cross into the realm of sculpture though she remains guided by a keen interest in surface and color. Her process begins with referencing the basic forms of domestic objects, such as chairs, couches and tables. She then integrates these abstracted furniture pieces in a hyper-curated context, juxtaposing rigid materials with softer counterparts. The aesthetic and tactile qualities of her chosen materials take precedence, yielding results that are compelling in both their depth and levity. Grounded in bold, cohesive color palettes and flat modernist forms, her works inhabit a space which fuses nostalgia and dystopia. With a finely tuned aesthetic sensibility, Livi continues to produce work that questions the nature of curated interior design.

Giulia Piera Livi (b. 1992, Philadelphia, PA) began her academic career by completing her BFA in Painting & Drawing at Penn State University. After enrolling at the Maryland Institute College of Art, she received her MFA from the Mount Royal School of Interdisciplinary Art in 2017. Livi has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, most recently serving as the subject of a solo exhibition, Avant Garden, at Guest Spot @ THEREINSTITUTE in Baltimore, MD. She has additionally been showcased at the Delaware Contemporary Museum in Wilmington, DE; the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington in Arlington, VA; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder, CO; Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, NY; Studio Arts Center International in Florence, IT, and Walter Otero Contemporary Art in San Juan, PR.

She is the recipient of several awards and grants, including the Trawick Young Artist Prize (2017), an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council (2019), and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts LEAW Family Foundation Residency Fellowship (2023). Livi has also completed numerous residencies, including with the Vermont Studio Center (2018), Ranchos Nativos Art and Experience Residency (2019), and Monson Arts (2024). She is a participating member of the Grizzly Grizzly Collective in Philadelphia, and her work was featured in issue No. 148 of New American Paintings (2020). Alongside her studio practice, Livi is adjunct professor at both the Pratt Institute and the Maryland Institute College of Art. She currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.