Paolo Mentasti was born and raised on a plane flying between Sao Paulo, Bogota and Mexico City. He will receive his BFA from The Cooper Union when Covid-19 allows for it. He is currently quarantined in New York City where he used to live and work as a studio technician and art instructor. His artwork attempts to “cleanse” forms of the historical baggage that clings to them through juxtaposition and mutual transformation. Like a fat-derived soap can cleanse dirty oils or fats by dispersing and suspending their molecules, historically-charged forms can cleanse one another. Barbed wire and obelisks—forms deployed on the US-Mexico border—have historically functioned as accessories to, and symbolic markers of, the violent policies of the US. By coiling terracotta barbed wire into an amphora—a mass produced ancient form with roots in empire and extraction economies--the historical associations of each form are suspended and dispersed into each other.
Paolo Mentasti was awarded the Susan Rothenberg Travel Fellowship in 2019 to travel to Chennai, India and research the ice trade and water scarcity. His art practice involves drawing, ceramics, sculpture, photography, performance and installation.
