Art Curation & Projects
About the Curator
Anisa Zafar is an award-winning visual artist, certified art curator, author, and speaker based in Basel, Switzerland. Her work bridges fine art, meditation, and emotional transformation, creating spaces where art becomes both an aesthetic experience and a path to inner exploration.
Born in Iran and later moving to Italy at the age of 17, Anisa developed a multicultural artistic perspective that continues to shape her work today. She studied painting and art history in Iran and continued her artistic education at prestigious institutions including the Interlochen Center for the Arts (USA), New York Art Academy (USA), and the Florence Academy of Art (Italy).
Her paintings are recognized for their vibrant color language, emotional depth, and meditative presence, and are exhibited internationally across Europe and the Middle East.
Since 2020, Anisa has expanded her artistic practice into international art curation, creating collaborative exhibitions and artistic platforms that connect artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Her curatorial work focuses on building meaningful artistic dialogue and creating opportunities for artists to exhibit internationally.
Through exhibitions, books, and collaborative projects, she continues to build platforms where art inspires connection, creativity, and cultural exchange.
Vision
Art has the power to unite, inspire, and transform.
Through curated exhibitions and international collaborations, Anisa creates spaces where artists can share their vision, expand their reach, and connect with audiences across borders.
Each project is designed to celebrate creativity, artistic excellence, and the universal language of art.
Anisa & Stella: Partners in Palette
Anisa & Stella: Partners in Palette is a curatorial collaboration between artist and curator Anisa Zafar and curator Stella Grimpa, built on shared artistic vision, trust, and a deep respect for artists.
Together they have developed a strongly artist-centered model, based on:
Their partnership grows from friendship and a shared belief that art should be supported with honesty, clarity, and genuine care for the artist’s voice.
Within this collaboration, Stella’s role is both strategic and soulful. She shapes the curatorial narrative, designs the exhibition architecture — both physical and emotional — and safeguards the ethical backbone of the projects.
Through this partnership, Anisa and Stella create exhibitions and artistic platforms that prioritize authentic artistic expression, meaningful dialogue, and respectful collaboration.
They are particularly known for their ability to recognize artists before they fully see themselves, creating spaces where artistic work can emerge naturally, without pressure or distortion.
Previous catalogs by Anisa & Stella
Artists & Miracles Connected by Art
Edition 3 – Basel 2025
Artists & Miracles Connected by Art
Edition 2 – Zug 2025
Artists & Miracles Connected by Art
Edition 1 – Zurich 2025
About Stella Grimpa
Curator · Artist · Cultural Strategist · Founder
A Life Lived Between Art, Structure, and Human Connection
Stella Grimpa is a multicultural, multidisciplinary curator and artist whose work exists at the intersection of artistic creation, human systems, and transformative collaboration. Born Greek and shaped by decades of living and working across Europe, Stella embodies a rare duality: the precision of structure and the intuition of art.
Her creative journey unfolds across Switzerland, Spain, Italy, France, and Greece, absorbing languages, aesthetics, and cultural rhythms that now inform her curatorial voice. Fluent in six languages, Stella navigates cultures as effortlessly as she navigates ideas — building bridges between artists, audiences, and spaces that might otherwise never meet.
From Systems to Soul: A Curatorial Signature
Before fully embracing the art world, Stella spent over two decades in complex global environments, leading large-scale projects, orchestrating high-stakes collaborations, and managing intricate ecosystems of people, resources, and ideas. This background deeply informs her curatorial practice today.
Where others see chaos, Stella sees composition.
Where others manage exhibitions, she designs experiences.
Her curatorial approach is defined by:
- clarity without rigidity,
- structure without constraint, and
- excellence without hierarchy.
This rare synthesis allows her to create exhibition formats that are both professionally rigorous and deeply human.
StemMa – The Artist Within
Parallel to her curatorial work, Stella is one half of StemMa, an international artistic collaboration rooted in dialogue, trust, and tactile intelligence. Through StemMa, Stella explores materiality, texture, symbolism, and emotional resonance, working strictly without AI and embracing the full imperfection and power of human creation.
StemMa’s works have been exhibited internationally, including in Zurich, Basel, Zug, Barcelona, Singapour, Paris (Carrousel du Louvre) and beyond. The practice reflects Stella’s belief that art is not an object, but a relationship — between people, processes, and time.
Curatorial Philosophy
Stella believes that:
- Art should be accessible without being diluted.
- Artists deserve respect, not extraction.
- Exhibitions should be encounters, not transactions.
- Beauty is a form of intelligence.
- Collaboration is a creative act in itself.
Her work consistently challenges traditional power dynamics in the art world, replacing them with trust, reciprocity, and shared authorship.
She does not believe in scaling art. She believes in deepening it.
Beyond Titles
Outside the gallery space, Stella is:
- a lamp artisan, a mural painter
- a lover of European cinema,
- a passionate cook and host,
- a tango dancer,
- and an outdoor soul accompanied by her dog Mango.
These are not hobbies — they are extensions of the same sensibility: attention, rhythm, presence, and care.
Join a Future Project
Artists interested in participating in future exhibitions or collaborative art projects are warmly invited to connect.
