Othiana Roffiel
'The Sky I Keep'
Mexico City–based artist Othiana Roffiel (SCAD B.F.A., painting, 2012) presents luminous paintings exploring the interconnectedness of the human body and the cosmos. Rather than relying on direct references, Roffiel allows her mind–body connection to guide the work. Forms emerge from subconscious memory and imagination, creating a visual language that is both playful and profound. The works’ surfaces vary like terrain on a map: brushstrokes glint with oil, as choppy as sea currents, while other areas are raw and chalky, with the pigment’s grit leveled like topsoil. These horizonless compositions evoke epic and intimate views. Floating forms, reminiscent of moons or limbs, are surrounded by stippling marks recalling sand, raindrops, or stars, while soft gradients suggest transitions, whether cellular or planetary in scale.
Roffiel’s paintings bear witness to the spectacle of nature, capturing both its vastness and the intimate impression it leaves on the individual. By embracing the abstract and symbolic, Roffiel channels ambiguity as a generative force, inviting viewers to freely associate. Her paintings bridge landscape and self, transforming the act of looking into a meditation on moments we hold close and images that linger in our minds.
Mexico City–based artist Othiana Roffiel (SCAD B.F.A., painting, 2012) presents luminous paintings exploring the interconnectedness of the human body and the cosmos. Rather than relying on direct references, Roffiel allows her mind–body connection to guide the work. Forms emerge from subconscious memory and imagination, creating a visual language that is both playful and profound. The works’ surfaces vary like terrain on a map: brushstrokes glint with oil, as choppy as sea currents, while other areas are raw and chalky, with the pigment’s grit leveled like topsoil. These horizonless compositions evoke epic and intimate views. Floating forms, reminiscent of moons or limbs, are surrounded by stippling marks recalling sand, raindrops, or stars, while soft gradients suggest transitions, whether cellular or planetary in scale.
Roffiel’s paintings bear witness to the spectacle of nature, capturing both its vastness and the intimate impression it leaves on the individual. By embracing the abstract and symbolic, Roffiel channels ambiguity as a generative force, inviting viewers to freely associate. Her paintings bridge landscape and self, transforming the act of looking into a meditation on moments we hold close and images that linger in our minds.
About the artist
Othiana Roffiel (b. 1990, Mexico City; lives and works in Mexico City) graduated summa cum laude in 2012 with a B.F.A. in painting from SCAD, where she also received the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award. In 2025, she was recognized as a winner of the 20th Biennial Rufino Tamayo, for which she was also selected in 2020. In 2024, she completed an artist residency at Fundación Casa Wabi in Puerto Escondido. During 2023 and 2019, she was a fellow of the Jóvenes Creadores scholarship, a production grant awarded by the Mexican government. Roffiel has exhibited her work in venues such as Galería Karen Huber, Mexico City; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo y de las Culturas Oaxaqueñas, Oaxaca; Museo Raúl Anguiano, Guadalajara; Complejo Cultural Los Pinos, Mexico City; Casa Siza, Mexico City; Centro Cultural Plaza Fátima, San Pedro Garza; and Museo de la Ciudad de México, Mexico City.
Credits
The Sky I Keep is organized by SCAD Museum of Art associate curator Brittany Richmond.
