When Memory Becomes a Mirror: Shana Sood and Yolanda Peña Mazzoni Explore Diaspora Through Realism

Featuring Shana Sood and Yolanda Peña Mazzoni, Mirrors: Distance Between Worlds explores migration, memory, identity and womanhood through the Indian and Cuban diasporic experience.

This exhibition explores the subtle cultural interplay between two artists, Shana Sood and Yolanda Peña Mazzoni, who grew up in completely different parts of the world yet connect through a series of realist paintings that reflect the distances and resonances between their worlds. Positioned between continents, generations, and personal histories, this show delves into the experiences of migration, memory, identity, and womanhood through the distinct lenses of the Indian and Cuban diasporas.

The exhibition serves as a visual barometer, mapping both the contrasts and overlaps in values, belief systems, and aesthetic traditions. Sood, of Indian origin, and Mazzoni, whose heritage traces back to Cuba and Spain – their works contemplate the layered nature of cultural belonging and the way women, particularly artists, navigate these complex terrains.

“It is a show about cultural distances – between countries, between generations and between selves,” says Sood. “Our works delve into similar themes but emerge from deeply rooted and vastly different cultural contexts.”

Through this exhibition, they aim to highlight the visual differences in their cultural expressions while revealing the shared emotional threads of generational continuity and transformation. The show will reflect an intimate mirroring of ritual and legacy, contextualized through two divergent visual vocabularies.

“Painting gives me a way to document my life: portraits, places, moments, and inner landscapes,” says Mazzoni. “It helps me understand what really matters.”

Sood’s practice draws deeply from her Indian heritage. Her works depict traditionally dressed women, rendered in oil on canvas with realistic precision. These compositions are direct yet imbued with introspection and emotional depth. Her subjects, mostly women, embody strength, grace, and a kind of quiet defiance.

“My work reflects a longing that is both personal and collective,” says Sood. “It expresses the duality of identity as someone who lives in the USA but holds a vivid, emotionally charged vision of India.”

Mazzoni’s current series focuses on the idea of “connection.” She explains, “Our lives are made meaningful by the relationships we form with people, places, ideas, and communities. This series is a painter’s meditation on those connections.”

A graduate of the New England School of Art and Design, Mazzoni built a career in interior architecture, working with firms like Gensler. Her passion for painting endured alongside this path. She later deepened her artistic practice through studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and The Art Students League of New York. She has participated in workshops with notable painters including Wolf Kahn, Alex Kanevsky, and Elias Rivera. She currently serves as Managing Director of Client Services at Artists for Humanity, where she connects youth creativity to professional opportunities. Her work has been exhibited at Imago Foundation for the Arts, Galatea Gallery, Patriots Place Art Gallery and Zullo Gallery.

Sood was born and raised in New Delhi and moved to the United States in 2005. While art was always her first love, family obligations required her to pursue a more conventional path earlier in life. Her recent solo exhibitions in India mark a personal and artistic homecoming. “Delhi is a sensory explosion,” she says. “Its colors, textures, and stories are endless. Himachal, where my roots lie, provides a counterpoint: quiet, meditative, vast.”

A self-taught artist, Sood’s style has evolved over the years through rigorous practice, community support, and inspiration drawn from artists like Amrita Sher-Gil and Matisse. Her work has been exhibited across the New England region in the USA, including at Arlington, Marblehead, and Plymouth, and she served as an anchor artist at the Patriot Place Art Gallery in Foxboro until its closure in 2024.

“Being an Indian artist in the USA offers a freedom to explore identity without rigid constraints,” she says. “At the same time, I carry the imprint of the past. My art seeks to reconcile both.”

Color is central to her work, particularly the deep red that is seen across many canvases. It is a hue of memory, passion, and cultural belonging, a bridge between her past and present.

“My canvases often reflect a romanticized version of India that lives only in my mind,” she confesses. “But perhaps that is the nature of diaspora art – to live between what was and what is, and to find beauty in that liminal space.”

Together, Sood and Mazzoni offer a poignant reflection on identity, memory, and the emotional architecture of migration. Mirrors: Distance Between Worlds is both a conversation and a communion, between women, between cultures, and between the inner and outer worlds that artists inhabit.