Isabella Salvo (b. 1995) is an Italian-American artist based in Berlin.
Her practice exists at the intersection of architecture, computational design, and material research. Working across installation, wall-based assemblage, and computational drawing, she investigates how non-manifold geometries, optical materials, and architectural systems can propose alternative ways of perceiving and inhabiting space.
Digital modeling is an active participant in Salvo's process. Rather than treating the computer as a tool for representation, she uses it as a collaborator in developing new spatial logics before translating them into meticulously handcrafted objects and environments. This dialogue between computation and craft forms a central tension within her practice: highly technical processes are ultimately resolved through manual fabrication, material experimentation, and sustained observation.
Salvo develops perceptual environments in which light, darkness, reflection, and movement continuously transform the experience of space. Underlying these formal investigations is an interest in cultivating a slower mode of attention. By stripping architecture of narrative and reducing experience to subtle shifts in light, darkness, and material, her work invites viewers into a contemplative encounter with space, where perception itself becomes the primary subject
EDUCATION
2018 Rhode Island School of Design — Bachelor of Architecture
(B.Arch), Dual Degree Program
2018 Rhode Island School of Design — Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Eigenlicht -- Hilleckes Gallery, Berlin
2019 Gravitas -- Hit Gallery, San Francisco
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Fragile Constructs -- Gezwanzig Projects, Vienna
2025 Position+ -- Gezwanzig Projects, Vienna
2024 Unattached -- Hilleckes Gallery, Berlin
2018 Abstract Realities -- Gelman Gallery, Providence
2017 Un-Touchable -- Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Brown University, Providence
2015 Acts of Resistance -- Woods-Gerry Gallery, Providence
2013 California State Summer School for the Arts Exhibition, Valencia
HONORS
2018 University Honors Scholar, Rhode Island School of Design
2015 Kakehashi Program Scholar, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
2013 Governor's Medallion, California State Summer
School for the Arts
ARTIST TALKS
2024 Artist Talk, Hilleckes Gallery, Berlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M__RfVmRaWE
SELECTED PRESS
2024 Leitman, Marissa. Eigenlicht – Isabella Salvo. Kunstleben Berlin.