Star Hunting

Author: Sofía Bassi

Title: Cazando estrellas (Star Hunting)

Date: 1967

Material: Oil on masonite

Dimensions: 46.5 × 34.5 inches

Location: Private collection

Rights: Sofía Bassi Foundation

Star Hunting depicts a solitary figure suspended between barren earth and a sky dense with stars. Draped in flowing garments, the female form stretches upward, her gesture fixed on a single, radiant point—an act that appears less like flight than invocation. Her elongated silhouette and slowed movement evoke not transcendence, but tension: the space between aspiration and distance, matter and light.

Bassi constructs this scene through stark contrasts. The arid, cratered terrain—evocative of a lunar surface—anchors the lower half of the painting, while the celestial expanse above suggests an open field of potential or desire. The figure’s body is marked with ovoid symbols, which recall alchemical diagrams and cosmological glyphs, reinforcing the notion of the body as a vessel for transformation and cosmic alignment.

Rather than narrating a journey through space, Star Hunting renders a metaphysical pursuit—an image of longing inscribed in the language of esoteric symbolism, where the act of reaching becomes its own form of revelation.