Alessandra Risi and the Silent Expansion of Peruvian Art on the International Scene

From botanical archives to fragmented landscapes, Alessandra Risi charts an international path with a body of work that intertwines memory, nature, and a critique of colonialism.

At just 27 years old, Alessandra Risi (Lima, 1997) has successfully entered the international contemporary art scene, taking her work to galleries in London, Milan, Vancouver, South Korea, and Lima. Her most recent participation in Fragmented Wholeness—a group exhibition curated by LATAMesa at Galleria Mucciaccia, Rome—and her first solo exhibition in England, Amazonic Ashes at Somers Gallery, consolidate a career that naturally expands from the intimate to the geopolitical.

“My entry into European galleries was gradual, almost organic,” says Risi. From her first exhibition at Otto Zoo (Milan) at the end of her degree at NABA, to her collaboration with Pietro Cattai—curator and fellow RCA student—on an independent project at Queen Alexandra House, which later led to a solo exhibition at Somers. It was there that she met curators Carolina Orlando and Pilar Seivane, who invited her to the exhibition in Rome. “One thing definitely leads to another, but in a natural way.”

Her studies in Italy and later at the Royal College of Art (London) not only expanded her network of connections but also her perspective on art from outside Peru: “Living in another city greatly strengthened the bond with my country. Being far away, I felt my Peruvian identity even closer.”

In Amazonic Ashes, Risi addresses the forest fires that ravaged the Peruvian Amazon in 2024 as a starting point for reflecting on contemporary forms of extractivism, but also on the colonial roots that sustain it. “For Alessandra, this episode represents a moment of profound tragedy, but also a clear manifestation of the cultural conflict she experiences as an artist,” writes Pietro Cattai in the curatorial text. “Her canvases become an extension of her homeland, reflecting its environmental and cultural condition.”
Fire appears as a symbol of destruction and transformation, in a painting that evokes both devastation and the possibility of rebirth. “Her work narrates a tension that remains relevant, both in the history of her country and in her personal experience,” Cattai affirms. Far from the exoticism with which Latin American art is sometimes viewed in Europe, Risi proposes a critical, informed, and deeply affective interpretation of the relationship between nature and power.

Risi's work is constructed from a hybrid archive: botanical stamps, books belonging to her grandparents, and 20th-century scientific catalogs. “I began to generate a relationship between plants as iconographic symbols of each country, transferred and classified since the colonial period,” he explains. The plant images, far from being neutral, refer to the forced circulation of species, knowledge, and bodies.
In her painting practice, these references are translated into unconventional media—matchboxes, ceramics, unframed canvases—that reinforce the idea of fragmentation, displacement, and memory. “Each material dialogues with the idea, as do the large and small formats,” she says.
Risi also incorporates formal elements of the Peruvian imagination: earthy and fluorescent colors, gestural brushstrokes, and a commitment to the expressive over the illustrative. “Painting is my life,” she confesses. “I wake up and the first thing I think about is painting, even when I say I'm not going to.”

Based in London, Risi feels part of a new generation of Peruvian artists who are finding spaces abroad without losing their connection to their country. “There's a very interesting generation of artists, architects, and writers. From Sandra Gamarra, with whom I spoke this year in my studio at the RCA, to figures like Jose Bazo, Macarena and Fátima Poppe, Alejandra Iturrizaga, and Manuel Velarde. We're very close,” she says.

Regarding the landscape, a central theme in her work, Risi maintains that “it has always been a key concern in Peruvian art. The country is so geographically diverse that it's inevitable to think critically about our relationship with the territory.” In her case, painting is also a space for reparation and projection: a way of building bridges between the colonial past, the extractive present, and possible more sustainable futures.

This year, Risi is preparing a new exhibition in Brescia, Italy, with another artist, after winning an open call. And although her most recent projects have been developed abroad, she doesn't rule out returning to Peru soon. “I'm interested in continuing the dialogue with artists of different generations. I feel we need to build more bridges between what's coming and what's past.”
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