Mariarosa Braile invites us to the opening of her retrospective exhibition, "Integration." In an exclusive interview hosted at her Buenos Aires studio, the Argentine visual artist sits down with art critic Tamara Bruzoni for an intimate conversation. Braile reflects on her career, sharing cherished memories of her time studying under great masters, such as sculptor Leo Vinci.
Obra de portada: “Hombre-Mujer” | Autora: Mariarosa Braile | Técnica: Escultura
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Entrevista por @tamarabruzoni para @revistatpandgo y @boxdearte.curatorial
Mariarosa Braile invites us to the opening of her retrospective exhibition, "Integration." In an exclusive interview hosted at her Buenos Aires studio, the Argentine visual artist sits down with the Argentinian art critic Tamara Bruzoni for an intimate conversation. Braile reflects on her career, sharing cherished memories of her time studying under great masters, such as sculptor Leo Vinci. By @boxdearte.curatorial for @revistatpandgo.
The following text is a transcript of the interview conducted on November 19, 2025, at the studio of artist Mariarosa Braile. To watch the video of the interview, please click on the image link below:
With the pulse of contemporary art, I welcome you to another encounter of art worlds by TP and Go Magazine Digital. Today we have the privilege of welcoming an Argentine figure whose career has marked various stages of the visual arts at a national level: the artist María Rosa Braile. Born in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, María Rosa chose Buenos Aires to forge an artistic path that began in the 1970s, opting for direct instruction from great masters such as Leo Vinci in sculpture, Yuyo Noe, Carlos Gorriarena, and Héctor Alvez, among others.
Her work links form and volume. She is distinguished by immense creativity and a knowledge that allows her to mold everything from the hardness of wood and marble to malleable materials like clay , or even waste materials like metal shavings. Her career has been recognized with important awards, most notably the first prize at the Workers' and Students' Salon in 1975 for her stone carving, Paloma Herida (Wounded Dove), and the prestigious Lorenzo al Magnificent prize in 2011 at the Florence Art Gallery for her innovative work "Hacer de tripas corazón" (Making a Man Out of Guts), presented as an installation with lights, sound, and video. This latter work had previously received an honorable mention at the National Salon of Visual Arts in 2010 and was subsequently exhibited in New York in 2012.
Her body of work is organized into different thematic series, such as her initial exploration of identity in "Persona versus Personae." After a period of inactivity, her return with the "Guerreras Saladas" (Salt Warriors) and "Metamorfosis" (Metamorphosis) series were marked by the symbolism of the butterfly and the search for freedom. The artist delves into the cycle of suffering and rebirth through the series "Corazón des-orbitado" (Dis-orbited Heart). This series was also titled "Spanda," which incorporated light art. On the other hand, in her most recent pase in the "Mandalas" series, she works by fusing, or rather, sculpture and metaphysical concepts.
Welcome to a new edition of TP & GO! Magazine Digital for all of Latin America. As we mentioned before, today we have a very special edition because we're previewing an exhibition opening—actually two exhibitions—and we're here with María Rosa Braile, none other than the curator and also a participating artist in one of these exhibitions, which presents her retrospective work, "Integration." María Rosa, welcome.
Thank you very much. Also, thank you very much for the interview.
Well, first of all, I'd like to ask you, so we can tell the audience, who the organizers of this exhibition are, what they've prepared, and who it's aimed at.
Well, I have to admit that I'm the organizer. I have a fairly prominent role because I'm the curator of both exhibitions, and one of them is a solo retrospective. I'm doing this group exhibition with artists from the University Women's Club, and this is our 23rd exhibition. We started in 2002, and it's an activity that originated entirely on my own initiative. I've been the curator and have participated in every single one of these exhibitions since 2002.
Now, to everyone in the audience, one of the first things we can't overlook is congratulating you, María Rosa, on being named an honorary member of the University Women's Club. I'd like you to tell us a little more about this organization, this foundation, what they do, and what the significance and relevance is for you to have been recognized in this way... which is also related to what we're going to talk about shortly, which has to do with the exhibitions and the opening on December 11th. What's it all about?
The University Women's Club is an international organization made up of female university students, both local residents and international visitors. Its distinguishing feature is that all activities are conducted in English. The aim is to foster friendship and intellectual pursuits of all kinds, and to stay informed about ▶
current events around the world. In other words, we have various committees for different activities, including literature, We also have social activities. The club helps support an orchestra, the neighborhood orchestra. It provides social assistance, if you will. Always with a focus on education, intellectual development, and everything that can help the mind and spirit.
And since what year has it been operating?
This institution has been operating since 1935, and coincidentally, this year we're celebrating our 90th anniversary.
Very good! Yes, congratulations as well.
Thank you very much. For me, it has been a very important pillar in my life because I've always met extraordinary people in this club who have participated in various activities and who have come from different countries. It's a gateway to the world.
Also, I understand that you are the founder of these Art Show cultural exhibitions. For this club of university women , which brings together this spirit of encounter, of celebrating... as well as the celebration of difference, which, well, is something that is also necessary. And well, are these activities always based in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, or are there different locations?
This is the University Women's Club of Buenos Aires, but there are usually University Women's Clubs all over the world. So when someone travels the world and wants to feel a sense of belonging, they can find the University Women's Club in this city and there they'll find like-minded people to connect with.
And I have a question specifically about these two exhibitions , which we understand are taking place simultaneously: "Celebrating Diversity" and the retrospective "Integration," which we'll discuss next. But I'd like to ask you who the artists are who will be exhibiting, what countries they represent, and, of course, how they came to be selected for this exhibition at the Palacio Raggio?
Well, the artists are members of the University Women's Club and come from the United States; we have a Japanese artist, one from Uruguay, and also some Argentine artists. They all present works of different styles, employing different techniques in different formats, and coincidentally, the exhibition is called "Celebrating Diversity" because what we are celebrating is that, despite our differences, we coexist harmoniously and enrich one another.▶
Excellent. Now I'd like to delve a little deeper into the retrospective, into your exhibition. Particularly into the one titled "Integration."
The solo exhibition, which is a retrospective, brings together works from the beginning of my career. I have artistic works that I've developed over 30 years. In 2023 and 2024, I presented works from the last 20 years, and this year it occurred to me to go even further back and present my very first period. I understand, María Rosa, that within this selection of works, we have an initial period that spans from roughly 1970 to 1978.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. And, on the other hand, another segment of the selection that covers 2002 to 2004. Exactly-. I'd like to ask you, and also have you tell us, what this is about— the connection, right?—with the temporal distance between that first part and this much more recent one. What criteria led you to select those two periods? And on the other hand, do you have any work that you consider might serve as a synthesis of this selection? Like one that unifies, or that you think is important in terms of unifying or bringing together, these two periods?
Well, that's several questions. We're all ears. First of all, I decided to do this retrospective to complete the public presentation of my entire artistic body of work. As I already mentioned, I've exhibited the last 20 years, and I needed to complete the cycle, to complete the circle of seeing for myself what I've done in these 30 years of work. I almost discovered the common thread as I reconnected with these works. It is nothing less than a quest I embarked upon when I began working artistically, which is the search for the deepest being that inhabits us and how, in our evolution, we go through different stages, presenting ourselves to the public perhaps with different facets or masks that are not that represent something false about the person, but rather a part of the person, which in evolution is necessary to leave behind in order to delve deeper and touch more deeply the true "deep self." That was my work. I would almost say it has been the work of my life.
Wow! Well, in that sense, we could think that many times, and in different artistic languages, the mask allows us to do a kind of, I ask you, a kind of test of the possibilities of being, right?
Beyond who we are in the present, as if to prepare for that next stage in this search. I believe that we are an infinite number of people and we bring out those different people through the different masks. But, there comes a moment, it came to me, or rather, I was able to express it plastically when I returned to art in 2002 ▶
with a work called Unmasking. There the masks fell away and there the deepest self appeared, which in my case was a profound identification with the butterfly. Which is nothing less than the quintessential representation of transformation, of metamorphosis.
Going back to your previous question, which you asked me about whether there are any...
I'd like to know, we'd love to know which two works you consider, for example, to have or embody a conceptual synthesis, or which for some reason you find relevant to be part of this very particular retrospective selection.
Yes, I think the first work I can point to is one called "Man-Woman," which is a coincidental integration of the masculine and feminine aspects that every person possesses. And I worked on it in such a way that from one profile you see a man, from the other profile you see a woman, but when you look at it from the front you see a person. That's what my search has been about: finding the person. And in this particular work, on the back appear the ancestors, who are the ones determining us, even if we don't know it or aren't aware of it. That's a work that I consider a synthesis of all the previous work I did with masks.
Before we move on to a second point, as a sort of commentary, I'm left with the idea that this search draws connections between certain anthropological profiles, or perhaps also with the transcendental/anthropological quest. It's as if it weaves together different dimensions that form, right?, part of the individual's search for evolution. Do you see it that way?
In my case, the truth is that the search began through a very deep connection with myself. And here I'll make a confession, if you will... I didn't have theoretical training in art; I had technical training in different branches of art, such as sculpture. And I'd like to mention my teacher Leo Vinci, a great master. In painting, I also had great teachers like Yuyo Noé and Carlos Gorriarena. In ceramics, I had a great teacher, Héctor Alves. So they gave me the concrete tools to artistically express what I needed to bring out of myself. I wasn't inspired by the outside world; I was inspired by what I felt. And I also owe a debt of gratitude to someone who greatly influenced my development, Irene Orlando, a wonderful psychologist and vocational guidance specialist. She helped me find my path in art and also in linguistics, because my life has taken a diverse path with both image and word. She was a huge influence on this, with an honesty and depth in her approach that I incorporated into my own work. So, those were my pillars. ▶
Speaking of influences, allow me a brief digression. You just mentioned her as the one who opened this path of connection, but understanding that the classes or time spent with these teachers, these role models who appear along the way, are often sought out because, for some reason, it was them and not others. I'd like to ask if, among these teachers you mentioned, like Leo Vinci, you recall any key concepts or tools that, at that time, helped to externalize perhaps some of what you were saying. Like this situation, having to bring out, to externalize something that was probably part of a question, right? Which is often the beginning or the driving force behind an idea or concept that will later be developed, and art necessarily, in this case in culture and visual arts, needs to be materialized. Do you remember any concept from Leo Vinci or any of your teachers that you'd like to briefly share with us?
Well, the most important concept that Leo conveyed to his students was to be inspired by nature. So much so that when we were starting out, he had us copy bones, or rather, replicate bones, human bones. Even in sculpture, because all the laws of nature were there. That is to say, inspiration or the rules are in nature. I think that for Leo, nature is the source of inspiration for the artist, and he finds all the answers in nature. The other important thing that Leo once said—because, let's say, I've worked as a sculptor with different formats: small, medium, and large—is... And Leo said that you arrive at large-scale work when you've developed an idea, gotten to the heart of it, and feel you have something to say. That's what large-scale sculpture is. Something the artist says—in English, it would be a "statement."
Right. It's a path, a consolidation, or a concept that could be something like "needing to be shouted to the world," needing to be seen, needing...
Exactly. It's something I want to say emphatically, and that's what happened to me in the last work of the "Persona Personae" series, which is the opposition between the person and masks, with the work "Separation." There, Leo himself accompanied me to a sawmill to find a suitable log for me to make that piece, which I had been working on conceptually in my mind with drawings, making clay sketches, and so on. When I had the idea clear, I went to find the log, and he helped me bring it back in his car; the tires were sagging from the weight of the log. That piece is called "Separation," and I also think it's a work of great synthesis. It was accepted into the National Salon back in 1978, and for me, it was like receiving an award.
The Keys to Heaven! ▶
Yes, it's a large-scale work. I spent two years working on it entirely by hand because at that time, the electric tools we have today, which make the task so much easier, didn't exist. What courage! But with that, I closed that first stage.
Of course. And well, this work will also be included in this retrospective. So, you're more than welcome to see it. I've seen it in person. It's striking. Stay tuned.
Thank you.
I'd like to continue then... we've already mentioned these two works, and I have a quote from the critic Guillermo Didiego, who said of your work that "its spirit is social, pacifist, and mystical." So, when organizing this narrative, right? Of the retrospective and the works you've chosen, we'd like to know what concepts you consider a common thread, right? Given this temporal distance, with that parenthesis in the middle that is clearly a curatorial decisión.
Well, the truth is I didn't have to do much work because, to my surprise, the works I had been creating over time contained within themselves a common thread that wove them together. That is, looking at my works, I was able to discover my story. The story was revealed to me, and it's a bit like what I told you before, this search for being, this search for the person, this delving deep to find the truth.
Speaking of the common thread, I'm going to ask you a question. In this particular selection of works for this specific exhibition, do you think that common thread forms , or rather orbits, closer to an evolution of the concept? Or perhaps you perceive that what is more strongly marked is a constant search? How would you describe those two paths?
It's a constant search, and I keep changing my image, changing my materials, changing my techniques. But I think that deep down, as I said, there's always the search to reach the depths of being. Also the search for freedom, but the search for the deep person. And it's present throughout all my work. It's a coexistence of evolution and constant.
Yes, wonderful. Yes, a lot of consistency. Speaking of this, also of retrospectives... The act of looking back also entails understanding that looking back implies being aware—at that moment—that there's a future toward which one is projecting. I'd like to know if we could find or anticipate for the audience anything new related to your path or something you'd like to tell us. With that smile, I'm getting happy. ➸
The truth is, I'm really enjoying all of this because I'm delving into works I did so many years ago, so many years ago, but I'm looking at them from the present. So, it's like I'm reinterpreting them and giving them a new meaning, and I'm telling myself a story. And, in this exhibition, in the retrospective exhibition Integration, I coincidentally want to integrate what I did in the past with this present perspective. So, I'm going to step a little outside the lines, let's say, I'm going to step outside the lines. And, working with pieces created over 20 years ago, I'm going to put together a site-specific installation. But it's based on the work, viewed through a current, contemporary lens. Like when characters escape from the story, it's something like that.
Well, very good. So, stay tuned to see what we find, especially for those who have had the opportunity to become familiar with María Rosa's work, which, as you mentioned, involves these evolutionary shifts between form and technique. So, we'll have to wait until December 11th to encounter this surprise, and I suppose we'll be left wondering, right? Whether this novelty, this previously unseen element appearing in this exhibition, is part of a "colorful note," or perhaps a path that opens a new perspective, allowing you to continue surprising us in future exhibitions.
Well, I hope so. My next project, and that's also why I'm doing this retrospective, is to write a book where I can unite my two paths: image and word. It would be a book with photos of the works and a narrative explaining my entire journey. That would be like finishing this 30-year cycle, and in the future, I'd like to work with artificial intelligence, perhaps introducing it into my production and creating works that incorporate it into the process.
To see what creative alternatives might emerge from this exploration…
Exactly. I've already been researching light art, and I'd like to explore electronic art. That is, to incorporate the latest movements with technological advances and, well, surprise myself.
It's more than interesting. Considering this, which is so often discussed, in this contemporary world where many of us had an analog past, we've entered the digital world, and now we have this emerging field of artificial intelligence and how it's becoming integrated into our lives, and why not, into art as well. Well, I think this is the perfect moment, María Rosa, for you to invite the public and get them excited. The microphone is open for you, for all your audience, for the readers of TP&GO! Magazine.
With great pleasure. We look forward to seeing you on December 11th at 6:00 PM at the Palacio Raggio, located at Moreno 502 in Montserrat. It will be a great pleasure to have you visit us. If you can't make it that day, the exhibition will be open until February 6th, Monday through Saturday, from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. So, I'm more than happy to welcome you, and if you can't make it that day, I usually organize guided tours. So stay tuned. I'll announce it on my Instagram.
In any case, we'll put the contact information on the screen so you can save it. The information about the date, time, and address will also appear again in the footer so you can take note and start planning for this end-of-year celebration, which is coming up with a bang, with Mariarosa presenting these two very special moments in Dialogue between that first stage and the most recent. Mariarosa, it has been a great pleasure.
A pleasure, Tamara. I loved that we were able to exchange ideas, and thank you so much for this opportunity.
Well, to the audience, I want to say that Mariarosa is a delightful person. We highly recommend that you come on the day of the vernissage. Let's remember the very important time: 6:00 PM. on the ground floor. Yes, perfect, so that she can welcome you. And I think one of the most beautiful things we can experience in art, besides the enjoyment of confronting the work in silence, in that "face-to-face" encounter, is also the very interesting opportunity to meet the artist who has the chance to share their work with us firsthand. And, of course, because it's a moment to celebrate. So, "Celebrating Diversity" and the "Integration" retrospective with Mariarosa Braile—we're waiting for you.
Thank you so much again, Mariarosa, for this meeting, and we hope to see you at the next edition of Mundosdearte.go for Box de arte curatorial. Thank you so much. Tamara Bruzoni sending greetings. ▄
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