Totem

2011–2017

Paintings built on a single constraint — every canvas 18 inches wide, with height as the only variable.

Totems is a strictly formal exercise built around a single constraint: every work is 18 inches wide, while the height varies from painting to painting.

The restriction was intentional. By fixing the width and allowing only the height to change, Scarzafava created a controlled framework in which he could test what was possible within a painting that moved in a single direction. The proportions became part of the challenge, forcing decisions about composition, balance, movement, and scale within an intentionally narrow set of parameters.

Unlike some of Scarzafava's other series, Totems does not begin with a narrative or outside reference. The subject is the act of painting itself. Each work becomes a test of how much can be accomplished when the artist deliberately limits the available space.

The resulting paintings function as a challenge to the artist's own abilities: how to maintain tension, visual balance, and momentum while working within the same fundamental dimension again and again.

Totems is an exercise in restriction, repetition, and control, using limitation not as a barrier, but as a way to push the possibilities of the painting.