Dignora Pastorello’s ‘A Strange Modernity’ at Cecilia Brunson Projects

Cecilia Brunson Projects in London presents 'Dignora Pastorello: A Strange Modernity', the first solo exhibition of the Argentine painter (1913–2001) in the UK, running from June 25 to July 30, 2026. The show features a selection of works that challenge conventional categories like naive painting, surrealism, and metaphysical tradition. Pastorello, who lived for over fifty years in her family home on Calle Pico in Buenos Aires’ Núñez neighborhood, developed an intimate observation of everyday spaces—patios, facades, staircases, terraces, gardens, and recurring black cats. Her compositions employ subtle formal distortions: slightly skewed perspectives, disobedient scales, flattened horizons, and multiple viewpoints within a single scene, creating an uncanny effect reminiscent of Freud’s das Unheimliche. The artist studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes from age fifteen and trained with Jorge Larco, Ramón Gómez Cornet, and Luis Centurión. She was the only female member of the Grupo Cinco, a loose association of painters. Despite frequent exhibitions and public collections, Pastorello was largely omitted from dominant Argentine art narratives. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Daniel Malarkey, repositions her as a singular figure whose work expands the history of 20th-century Argentine art beyond its established categories.